Demerits
by HeronS
Summary: While commiserating over the antics and mistakes of the cadets that they are teaching, the former Alpha shift of the Enterprise start to share tales of the demerit-earning shenanigans they themselves were up to as young officers! One chapter per tale. Set between TMP and TWOK. (Features Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov! COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

**Chapter 1 - Introduction**

"I dinnae believe it. It's nae possible to be this stupid." Scotty was staring at the broken power coupling in his hands as if it were a personal affront.

"And yet, there it is," said Spock. He entered the command that would take the lift to the admiral's apartment and noted that they would be between eight and nine point three minutes late, depending on how quickly Mr. Scott would walk. Agitation in humans often led to adrenaline surges.

"But, Mr. Spock," Scotty's voice had a pleading edge to it, as if he wanted the Vulcan to fix the situation by will alone. "They've had three semesters of applied warp dynamics. Three semesters! I taught them myself. I taught the lass who committed this," he shook the coupling, "this atrocity! It is just not possible that they would align all of sector three with the Baynes band instead of the Cor band."

"And yet…" said Spock, motioning the engineer to precede him out of the lift. They set off at a respectable pace. More likely eight minutes late. Maybe seven point four.

"I know. I know! I cannae explain it. It's as if they lose half their IQ points when they step out of the Academy."

Spock absorbed this hyperbole with equanimity but had to admit that there was some truth to the Scotsman's complaints. Many promising cadets, the Federation's best and brightest, did show surprising inadequacies once they embarked on their first training cruises. That was, of course, what training cruises were for, and regardless of how carefully one constructed a curriculum (and Spock had spent a great deal of thought on his) the pressures and problems of real-world situations could rarely be approximated with theoretical classes.

They reached the admiral's apartment and Spock punched the buzzer. He had codes to enter at will, but very rarely used them.

The door opened, and Uhura's well-known laughter met them. She was seated in a deep sofa by the fireplace, laughing together with McCoy at something that Chekov had been saying. Their host was also chuckling as he waved them inside.

"You're late," Kirk smiled, "I never thought I'd see the day!"

Spock opened his mouth to reply, but Scotty beat him to it. "Ach, captain. It's those vandals' fault. Look at this. Just look at it. I let those cadets loose at my bairns, and now it looks like a Grendulan hornback had been rampaging down there."

Kirk commiserated and ushered them towards the spacious apartment's kitchen, nodding at all the right places as Scotty went on to detail his grievances. Kirk caught Spock's eye and tilted his head at the table, where a salad and both used and clean plates were stacked. Spock ignored the hint.

Their teaching duties at the academy were never light, and Spock complemented them with an active research career. At the moment, with finals approaching at light speed, the situation was rather taxing, however, and it had taken a great deal of planning to enable this gathering of former crewmates. Spock and Scott had not made it in time for dinner with the others, but would still have a few hours of Chekov's company before he shipped out in the early hours of the morning. Newly promoted first officer of the _Reliant_! Well deserved, thought Spock, who would never admit to having favorites among the many young officers that he had tutored over the years.

Scotty picked up some food and they joined the others by the holographic fire. Uhura was soon nodding.

"Don't I know it! Oh, my little flock have been diligent at their stations, quite impressive, but you can tell how young they are. There is some kind of love triangle, or more likely love pentagon, going on between some of the kids, and today one of them almost ran out crying. Cadets!"

McCoy smiled, rose, and went over to the table, saying over his shoulder "I had four holographic humans and one holographic Vulcan die on the operating tables today. I don't think any of the young trainee doctors would have made the mistakes that they did in a normal operating room, but shake the room a little and flash a red alert at them, and they get all nervous." He piled on a generous helping of salad and stuck a fork in it. As he rejoined the others he thrust the plate at Spock with a meaningful glare. The Vulcan gave a small sigh, but gave in and accepted the plate. He knew that any logical argument that he did not really need to eat for another few days would be lost in the face of his physician's implacable insistence.

He raised a token eyebrow in protest, and, as he had calculated, it led the humans to laugh. It had taken some years, and gentle guidance by Jim, for him to not only tolerate, but learn to appreciate and even induce, this joviality at his own expense. He now recognized it as an important part of the positive group dynamic for this particular subset of humans. His friends.

Jim laid a brief hand on his shoulder before sitting down in the chair next to him. The admiral looked relaxed tonight, a far too rare occurrence these days. Spock did not believe that this desk job was beneficial for his friend.

But for tonight, Jim seemed happy. At the moment, he raised a warning finger at the others, smiling.

"Oh, be careful of stones in glass houses. I seem to recall a few stories of your days as an intern, Bones…"

"Never happened. Not true. Blatant slander." McCoy smiled and picked up his glass.

"Really? There was this one you told me about re-attaching the wrong limb on a Sulmatran…"

The humans laughed uproariously, and it took Spock a minute to figure out why, before he recalled that Sulmatrans had very few limbs at all, and the ones that they did have, had very particular functions… Kirk continued,

"...Or the one where you danced around your patient with beads and rattles?"

"I'd like to hear this story!" Said Chekov, grinning. His recent promotion had given him a boost in self-confidence around the others. He'd spent his formative years as an ensign among these people, and had only recently lost, or at least learned to hide, a rather embarrassing hero worship. He reminded himself that he was very much an adult, a decorated officer, and that it was not strange to spend time in the admiral's… Jim's… apartment, drinking good whiskey, an equal among equals during these off-duty hours.

McCoy shook his head vigorously. "Oh no, that one I'll take to my grave. And really, Jim, who's the pot calling the kettle black, hmm? Don't forget that I know the history of some of those demerits you got as a cadet and ensign."

"You'd never let me forget, Bones" said Kirk. "Tell you what - I'll trade you stories. It seems a night for reminiscing, before we send this hero off gallivanting around the galaxy." He raised his glass to Chekov, who was very proud of the fact that he did not blush at all, or at least not much.

"Let me trade you a story that'll make our cadets seem like well-behaved paragons of virtue. Yes, Scotty, even your Grendulan lads and lassies."

He settled in his chair and let his thoughts wander back to a time before paperwork and committee meetings about committee meetings had threatened to engulf his existence…

* * *

 **Author's note: First Kirk, then Scott, McCoy, Uhura, Chekov and finally Spock will share their stories. If you have any ideas for tales for Chapel and Sulu, I'd love to hear them, maybe we can sneak them in! At any rate, please leave a word or two (or more!) as a review!**

 **I had two gracious and talented beta readers for this chapter - DelJewell and WeirdLittleStories - and it is infinitely better for it.**


	2. Chapter 2: Kirk's Story

**Chapter 2 - Kirk's Story.**

"Let me start by saying that this was a crazy time. Gary and I were right out of the Academy, finally on a real spaceship. The _Farragut_ was forty years old, its old t-fusion drive creaked whenever we made too sharp a turn, and I think Chief Amber held her together mostly with duct tape. Nonetheless, we would have fought anyone who dared claim she wasn't the most beautiful thing in existence."

"Most of our classmates were stuck on starbases or in-system runs for the initial assignments, but we were among the favored few who were about to try our wings in real space. In other words: we were about as full of ourselves as twenty-year-old midshipmen can get, and you know that's saying a lot. I'm sure you all remember that feeling of the Academy's constraints and confines - mental and physical - of falling away away during those first weeks."

"The _Farragut_ was docked at Starbase 3 for hull repairs and as long as we spent our duty shifts familiarizing ourselves with our stations, we two midshipmen were left pretty much to ourselves. We thought it was paradise - no drills, no curfews. No tests! I remember Gary and I swearing a solemn oath, sanctifying it in Arcturian rum, never to touch five-dimensional Sitter-space math again…"

Kirk took a sip of the ale and grinned at rueful smiles that appeared on several of his friends' faces. Directly after graduation, many Starfleet officers were convinced that nothing could be as grueling as the last months of final exams and training exercises. Most learned that this was wrong pretty quickly…

Spock had tilted his head, and Kirk could see amusement in his eyes.

"Clearly not an oath you worked very hard on keeping," the Vulcan noted.

"Oh, I had every intention of keeping it at the moment it was made. But... it was very bad rum. And I didn't know then that if they give you the Federation flagship to command, your Science Officer isn't going to slow down to explain things to you: you're expected to keep up with the math yourself…"

Scotty laughed. The senior officers' academic seminars that Spock had masterminded on the _Enterprise_ were legendary for a reason. Department heads were asked to always have a passing familiarity with the cutting-edge science informing the other departments. Captain Kirk had always insisted on far more than that for himself, and his officers had regularly tutored him on the science behind the latest technology the ship was using. It wasn't the norm for other Starfleet captains, though, who were often content with giving general orders with no detailed understanding of how those were then to be carried out. Scotty still remembered Spock's disbelieving contempt when he'd found that out.

Kirk took the reins of the story again "So, no more Sitter-space projections. No more waking up in the middle of the night by being beamed directly into a training scenario in Siberia. Instead evenings of freedom, song, cheap wine and not very subtle attempts at picking up female humanoids for me, and picking up anything vaguely bipedal and warm-blooded for Gary. I met a lovely lady and thought I was helplessly and forever in love for the last four days of our leave. Unfortunately for me, she had a little more sense and when I awoke in the morning of our ship-out day, she was gone with a short note of thanks-see-you-on-the-flip-side. I had a black out and was hungover from an Andorian mushroom binge…"

"Jim!" protested Bones, a disapproving frown on his face.

"It was cheap, Bones, and we were young enough to think that we didn't really need a dorsal cortex anyway. So, I was heart-broken and sick enough to think that the world was over and that nothing could be more important than my heartbreak. I didn't even realize that I'd missed the scheduled beam-up time until Gary called on our decidedly non-regulation twinned com-pads."

Kirk nodded ruefully at Uhura when she groaned and complained, "If I had a credit for every private com that young officers try to sneak aboard… They light up the communications system like a Christmas tree, and every idiot thinks that surely the Klingons or Romulans won't be able to track and hack _their_ devices because _they_ have the newest firewall or whatnot… It's a communication security nightmare to have those on-board…"

"Yeah, you'd get credits for us two idiots as well, Nyota. It's just so convenient to be able to access local networks and talk to your pals at will… So, anyway, Gary called a few times, and when I finally dragged myself away from the bed to answer, he told me that I'd missed the beam up. I sobered up pretty quickly at that point, but the damage was done. I saw dismissal, court martial, the brig, maybe a salt mine, in front of me, my career ending before it had even begun…"

Kirk smiled at Bones' skeptical look "Oh, Captain Tennyson wouldn't have busted me for missing a beam up, but I wasn't really in the right frame of mind to think 'proportionate response'. Even so, I have to say, in my own younger idiot's defense, that my first idea was to simply call the ship and confess…" He paused meaningfully.

"I take it that you didn't?" asked Chekov, a mixture of awe and disbelief in his eyes.

"Well, that's when Gary said that he'd already covered for me. Lied to the lieutenant about a computer mix up, that I was already aboard. And I couldn't get Gary punished for trying to help me. I decided that the only thing to do was to find a way to sneak aboard the ship without anyone noticing." Spock's eyebrow had begun to rise in incredulity, and Kirk feared it still had a long way to go…

"Ach, sneak aboard a docked starship, lad? That's not supposed to be possible!" Scotty was clearly enjoying the story and had gotten up to rummage through the liquor cabinet again.

"The belief that there are no no-win scenarios can sometimes lead you down some pretty dumb rabbit holes, Scotty. My particular rabbit hole first took me to the cargo dock, from where I could see the _Farragut_ , in all her antique glory, beginning to detach her first support cables. I knew I had only an hour to get aboard.

Gary had this idea about getting me onto a shuttle, but the last shuttles all had senior officers on them. I'm incredibly glad that I managed to convince him not to try to bribe them, or neither of us would have made it to ensign..." Kirk accepted a glass of something green from the engineer.

The others were laughing at his story, and he was determined to tell the story in the way Gary would have wanted. Gary Mitchell's violent death during the _Enterprise_ 's shake-down cruise was one of many traumatic memories that Jim had learned could never be exorcised, only lived with. For a moment he couldn't help himself thinking that being thrown out of Starfleet for bribing an officer would have saved Gary's life… He sought Spock's gaze, drew strength and pushed the destructive thought down. He forced his thoughts back into making this a good narrative.

"Instead, and at this point, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to please remember that I still had Andorian mushrooms in my blood, I decided to simply jump over to the ship. I'd seen some maintenance workers hauling in support cables. Some of them worked outside in space, attached to long lead lines from the station. They had a few extra space suits, but none of them had thrusters… But who needs thrusters, right? Calculating the exact vector of a space jump is just a geometry problem, right Mr. Spock?"

"Indeed. And not even in five dimensions."

"Indeed. So, I stole a space suit, jury-rigged an air-lock and sprang away from the station towards the _Farragut_ , in a dashingly bold maneuver that unfortunately sent me in just the wrong direction to miss the ship and instead head towards open space... I managed to catch a loose support pylon, and spent 30 minutes, shaking, praying to any deity that would listen, carefully crawling back to the hull of the starbase… And then I tried again."

"Of course you did" muttered Bones, and shook his head. "You can't blame the mushrooms either, Jim. This sounds just like non-intoxicated James T. Kirk."

"Why thank you, Doctor. I think. The next time, things went better. I missed the spot I was aiming for by some 70 meters, but managed to not bounce off by my magnetic boots latching on to the hull. I heroically did not to throw up in my space suit, and started walking, one laborious step after another, across the ship's hull. At this point, Gary had stopped screaming at me, and instead tried to figure out a way to get me inside. I couldn't just knock on the observation dome, after all, and all air locks were being used. He figured he could beam me inside by cargo transporter, if I was really close. But how could he do that without the transporter being being detected - anything human was bound to register as an unapproved materialization, possibly an intruder…" Kirk trailed off deliberately.

"Let me guess, Captain" said Uhura. "You somehow managed to hide yourself in an unscannable box?" Kirk shook his head and grinned.

"You drilled a hole in the hull," suggested Chekov, but Kirk shook his head again. There were a few moments of silence before Spock spoke: "why was the ship having hull repairs?"

"Yes, well done, Mr. Spock. The hull repairs were due to the _Farragut_ having picked up a set of nasty space parasites, strongly attached to the hull and slowly corroding it with their acid."

"I see." said the Vulcan, clearly enjoying, for those who know him well enough to pick up the signs, the puzzle solving. "They would be carefully excised with lasers. Probably from automated drones?"

Kirk nodded. "There were several drones working around the ship, seeking to cut away any organic parasites. And yes, at this point, they had identified me as a parasite as well, because two of them started buzzing over my way…"

"The fact that they were expecting mostly stationary parasites, and I was clearly a moving one, was the only thing that kept me from being blasted immediately. They tried to puzzle me out. Gary was ready to fold at this point, beaming me over and then just telling the lieutenant. But I'd gotten…"

"Obsessed" suggested the doctor.

"Competitively obstinate?" suggested Spock.

"Determined," Kirk continued, "to get this plan working. I suddenly realized that the cargo transporters were running compressed data streams, rather than the open ones used for extra redundancy in the personnel transporters. And that those data streams would probably be similar enough to the sensor sweeps used by the drones to cut away the parasites, but not cut into the hull… I can see your skepticism Scotty, just hang on. So, Gary managed to get unnoticed to a cargo transporter, and I stood still on the hull as the drones got closer and closer. The scan started half a meter away from me, and was followed a moment later by the red glow of the laser, inching closer. I think Gary in fact managed to get me out of there only a half second or so after the laser got going, but it felt like half an eternity - and that's a universally acknowledged, very real unit of subjective time experience for humans, Spock."

Chekov asked over the laughter "Were you caught?" and Scotty followed with "I don't see how you managed to disguise the data stream…"

"I'm not entirely sure of the answers to either of those questions. I got aboard, and we got back to the quarters we shared by simply projecting an aura of certainty and walking fast. The _Farragut_ cast off and for the next several days we did nothing but work very diligently during our shifts, jumping guiltily whenever a senior officer called our names."

"I wrote a report about the security problem of disguising transporter data streams in sensor data streams, as if it was something I'd thought of when seeing the drones, and I bullied Gary into writing a report about how someone, hypothetically, one day might be able to jury rig air locks and steal space suits to get over to a ship, maybe in order to, for instance, place an explosive."

"We had lots of arguments about those reports, but in the end we didn't really have a choice. As the adrenaline rush disappeared, we could tell that we'd made a series of very stupid choices, but I blamed myself, and Gary blamed himself, and we were caught up too much in a tangled web of loyalty to each other to allow the other one to suffer for our shortcomings. Luckily, the Starfleet ethics drummed into our skulls stopped us from covering up potential threats to the service, but we did agonize over the wording quite a bit."

"About a week later, I was called to the captain's ready room. He said that he wanted to go over my theories of data stream concealment, and asked me to reiterate my report. I could see that he had Gary's report on his desk as well, and I suddenly knew that he must have made a connection somehow, maybe seen something amiss with the logs. I also knew then that I couldn't lie to his face. I must have looked guilty as hell, I know I was sweating. He just leaned forward and told me, in a grave serious voice that both Gary and I had earned demerits, and did I know why?"

"I figured the game was up, drew breath to confess everything - Andorian mushrooms and all - when he told me deadpan that although the insights of the reports were very important for security reasons, we'd filed them in the wrong computer folder and sloppy record keeping was not something he tolerated on his ship! He quizzed me on the particulars for another half hour before he dismissed me with a dry: "Well, I think we've all learned something these last few days, midshipman".

"He had me work extra shifts with this sensor specialist in Sciences to come up with ways to counter any attempt to hide transporter data streams. His name was Kanek…"

"The Kanek reconfiguration!" exclaimed Scotty. "It's obsolete now, for sure, but I remember reconfiguring the _Enterprise_ cargo transporters with that. A nasty little trick…"

"You'll be happy to hear that I didn't touch Andorian mushrooms after that, Bones. Or anything like it really."

"I know damn well you didn't, Jim, you've had enough concussions and strange neuroshocks that I think I could draw your brainscans from memory. Of all the stupid things to try… I'm all for alcohol in moderation, we can de-tox that. But it seems young people, then and now, have a nasty fascination for finding the most dangerous way to fry their brains." The doctor shook his head in disgust.

"You and Gary, Mr. Mitchell, you clearly made quite a team" mused Chekov. Like the doctor, he had come aboard the _Enterprise_ after the charismatic navigator had died on Delta Vega.

"More like a natural disaster looking for something to hit. I loved him like a brother, Pavel, but the two of us… we had no balance, and even less intelligence, between us." Kirk's smile was wry and wistful at the same time. He sought Spock's calm gaze and held it in silence for a few seconds.

"The balance between friendship and duty is a perilous knife edge to walk," Kirk concluded, softly.

The group contemplated this statement for a moment, thoughts drifting outwards to distant planets and old choices. It was Scotty who finally broke the silence.

"Ach, well, as long as it is conflicting loyalties, and not greed or power hunger that lead us astray, I think we're still on the right path, crooked though it might be. Starfleet has always shown a leniency for that, as they should. And I was personally very grateful for that when I was a midshipman on the _Enterprise_..." Scotty deftly made the mood lighter, the musical lilt to his tone promising a humorous anecdote.

"As with the captain's, this story also also starts with a female, but a verra verra..." The engineer held his hands out, maybe half a meter between them and then successively indicated a smaller and smaller size until his hand were cupped with only a handsbreadth between them "...verra wee one."

"Oh, Scotty, don't tell me you seduced a Sentan gnome!" Exclaimed Uhura in mock horror to general laughter.

"No, no, lass," said Scotty with playful wink, "You have a dirty mind, you. But yes, this tale has a… relationship that turned out to be devilishly hard to break up…" He took a sip of his whiskey, letting it roll over his tongue for a few moments before he began…

* * *

 **Author's note: Next up is Scotty! Then McCoy, Uhura, Chekov and finally Spock. If you have any ideas for more tales, I'd love to hear them, maybe we can sneak them in! At any rate, please leave a word or two (or more!) as a review! What did you think about Kirk's tale?**

 **DelJewell and WeirdLittleStories were kind enough to beta read this for me, and I'm ever so grateful for their notes.**


	3. Chapter 3: Scotty's Story

**Chapter 3: Scotty's tale.**

"So let's see," said Scotty, "this was when I was an ensign under Lieutenant Olsen in Engineering. You weren't aboard yet during this incident, Mr. Spock, for which I must say I'm grateful, or what little respect you could have had for me back then would surely have gone out the air-lock…"

"I understand that there is a human tradition of belittling oneself in this kind of narrative, Mr. Scott," interrupted Spock in a firm tone, "but I wish to state that I have certainly never thought of you as anything but a consummate professional, with an admirable dedication to your work."

"Hear, hear," echoed Kirk and raised his glass to the engineer.

"I… well. Well, thank you, Mr. Spock. Well, now, I hope this telling will not then damage that view too severely."

"The _Enterprise_ had been in deep space for six months, and had just come to Devar II, a sprawling metropolis in the Free Planets Alliance. Lofty towers for the rich ones, shacks and mud streets for the poor ones - a right crime, it was. This was before the Devar system joined the Federation, and everyone got schooling and food and reasonable quarters."

"We had shore leave, and Mr. Olsen had forced me to abandon my technical journals and go - oh, you laugh, Admiral, but you'll soon see that this always ends badly… I didn't much care for the idea of the hoity toity art galleries of the aristocrats, and didn't think I could bite my tongue if they started talking about the 'ongoing demonstrations of the unwashed rabble', or the like. So I headed for the shanty town, thinking to meet some more reasonable people, maybe sample some food."

I soon found a lively market, full of fishy and fowly and who-knows-what things for sale, and some houses of, well... possibly quite good repute. I was not in any position to review them. There was also a local version of a casino, and this last was, unfortunately, what drew my attention."

"Now, I think it is very reasonable to forbid gambling for money or goods on 'Fleet ships - but at the time, I thought it was bloody silly to forbid it for shore leave crew. We were there to blow off steam, I figured! After all, what could possibly go wrong?"

"Famous last words, Scotty!" said Uhura, laughing and leaning back in her comfortable chair. "And cursed words as well - you say that, and invariably the sky comes crashing down. That's a well-known law of statistics, Mr. Spock," she added, teasing, when the Vulcan looked like was about to take issue with her statement.

"She's right, Spock," Kirk said.

"Every time, Mr. Spock," Chekov added. "Murufski's probability law, first proven in Russia in 1774."

"And don't even think about suggesting to test it out, Spock, or you'll have to toss salt over your shoulder and run around the block three times," threatened Bones, and the others nodded solemnly.

Spock gave the humans a look which was not, of course, long-suffering, and very pointedly turned his attention back to the grinning Scotsman, who continued.

"Now, the game of the hour was Quag, which, like all good gambling games around the galaxy, is a little bit like poker. In this particular case, poker crossed with a pawn shop. You enter objects, never plain money, and guessing the value of the others' stakes is part of the game. It also happened to be a game that I was very familiar with - I had even come second in a regional school championship when I was a lad. So I sat down at this rickety little table and had them deal me in."

"It was a nice crowd, very willing to share a pipe of something that I decided not to question the legality of. Quick to laughter and cheer. The only exception was this shifty looking fellow, a Ferengi, who kept drumming his hand on his knee, nervous like. He didn't say much though, so I didn't mind him as much as I should have."

"I didn't do too bad the first few rounds - but then, I got an imperial hammer set! Ah, that's one of the best combinations there are. The odds of getting it in the draw is astronomical… and that's when everything went to hell in a handbasket."

"Oh, is this the time when you almost gambled away the _Enterprise_ to the natives? I heard part of that story below decks," exclaimed Chekov excitedly, and then immediately clamped his mouth shut when Bones gave him an exasperated look.

Kirk blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Ah, no lad," said Scotty rather hurriedly, "what a thing to say, no, this is a very different story…"

"You once gambled away the _Enterprise_?" Kirk asked.

"Let's get you some more bourbon, Jim-boy, and let Scotty get back to the real story," said McCoy, with a charming smile.

"Let's get back to the point where someone gambled away…"

"Jim," said Spock, "it is not a pertinent point, and quite divorced from the current narrative."

"You knew about this? How come I haven't heard about this?"

"Jim," said Bones, firmly, "sometimes you only needed to know what your very competent senior officers told you, in order for you not to throw what we medical professionals call a _hissy-fit_ and make a mountain out of a small mole-hill of, ah, easily cleared up cultural misunderstandings. Now shut up, drink your bourbon, and let Scotty tell the rest of _this_ story!"

Kirk subsided, with a look at Scotty that promised a one-on-one conversation at some later date.

"So what did you lose, Scotty?" Uhura asked, smoothly, "your communicator?"

"Your clothes!" McCoy guessed.

"I think it likely that this narrative will involve your collection of spirits, possibly smuggled Romulan ale", suggested Spock.

Scotty looked aggrieved, "Ach no, people, have you no confidence in my abilities? I didn't lose. I won! - and that's where everything started to go wrong…"

"I won some assorted knick-knacks, a bottle of local spirits, a small Betazoid wind-chime - and also a sturdy metal box, maybe a cubic decimeter in size, off of the Ferengi. The same Ferengi who then excused himself and immediately left. It did occur to me to wonder if he'd somehow rigged the game… But my mandatory time on the surface was up, so I said goodbye to the others and left Delvar with my ill-gotten, (or at least illicit-gotten), winnings."

"Back on the _Enterprise_ , I went back to my shared quarters. Fortunately, my roommate wasn't due back until the next day, because things very quickly started to go wrong. I was in the shower, when the sonics suddenly gave up on me with a small firework display of fused couplings. The lights were out too, and when I finally found a flashlight, I saw that something had eaten its way out of the metal box! I saw something flash by, and turned just in time to see this small devil of a thing, like a furry lizard about a handsbreadth long, sleek like a miniature panther. It was sitting on the wall, firmly anchored in place by six clawed legs. These claws were clearly sharp enough to slice through the inner wall and damage the circuits. As I watched, the little bugger eyed me contemptuously, and then, nonchalantly, took a bite out of the wall itself! I gave up a shout, lunging after the thing. It scurried towards the door, which of course opened as I got close to it. I followed it outside, but had no chance to keep up."

"The chase was cut short by chief petty officer Holst, who didn't approve of me running around the halls stark naked, and demanded an explanation… Oh, I should have told her, then, of course, but frankly I was too embarrassed about the whole thing - from the gambling, to bringing an unquarantined animal aboard, to chasing it naked through the hallways. I figured that, as long as I found it quickly enough, and no one got hurt, it was almost like the whole thing had never happened… I even told myself that it was a noble 'my mess - my clean-up' matter, but really, I was just being an idiot."

"So I muttered something about a bad dream, apologized profusely, and snuck back to my quarters to do some research. It didn't take me long to figure out what kind of beastie it was - a Ferengian Snatcher. The little devils have razor claws and even more vicious teeth, and for reasons that no one has figured out, they're obsessively attracted to electric fields. They chew up wiring and circuits and whatever else they can find, and drag parts back to their well-hidden hoards. They're real nuisances, but are sacred on several continents on Ferengi Prime, and must be dealt with in accordance with a host of rules and folk lore - most likely why the Ferengi pawned the little nightmare off on me in the game."

"And now it was loose on the ship, and it was, unquestionably, all my fault."

"I set out to find it, as discreetly as I could. It didn't take me long to figure out that a foot chase was out of the question. I was able to track its progress by the number of incident reports of minor malfunctions that started popping up, and volunteered to fix most of them. I almost caught it once, but it bit me and slipped through my fingers like silk."

"There's always a solution to every problem though - and I decided that my solution was bots. This was in Old Man Smith's Fleet, and as you might remember, he was always pushing for automation over organics on the ships. We had a host of bots, from small cleaning bots running around, always getting underfoot (and overhead, and in-your-side, as they ran along the ceilings and walls), to lumbering repair bots stalking the hallways."

Uhura was nodding. "I remember! You always got the impression that they were stalking you. Eerie. And as soon as they got smart enough to actually be useful, they became a security risk - far too easy to hack."

"Yes, well... About that... You'll recall the small cleaning bots - they had little grip arms, and were incredibly fast and not very clever. I decided to reprogram them to find the Snatcher. But I couldn't send the programming out as a centralized command, or I'd be found out in no time. Instead I reprogrammed about two dozen of them manually, to become Snatcher-hunters."

"While I cannot condone such actions, I find that quite a remarkable feat," said Spock, his head tilted. "I assume you used some kind of adaptive programming?"

"Aye, a Werner unsupervised-learning algorithm - it was quite new then, and I was far too impressed by how powerful it was. The bots got the bio-specs on the Snatcher, and then my thought was - and I think you'll see the flaw quite plainly - that they would learn on their own and get better."

Spock nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. I can see how this could become problematic." He raised an eyebrow at Chekov who smiled back. McCoy, clearly fed up with the technical in-joke, made a 'get on with it' gesture to the engineer.

"Well, the bots didn't become better hunters. They had a single Snatcher to find, you see, and when they didn't get enough contact with it, they started broadening the definition of 'Snatcher', seeing other things as potential Snatchers. Plants in the botanical garden. People's feet. And other bots. It didn't take long for there to be a full-on bot-on-bot gang war going on, escalating quickly!"

"Now people started to realize that things were wrong. A single snatcher couldn't do so much damage - but two dozen angry bots was another matter! I had pretty much given up the idea of getting out of this scot-free, but I really wanted to contain the damage before I had to tell someone about it. And the best way to do that…" he paused meaningfully.

Uhura groaned, "Don't tell me. More bots?"

"Of course, lass! I figured that the big repair stompers could easily incapacitate the cleaning bots that I had fiddled with. I was pretty panicked, but I caught two of them and made them into cleaning-bot hunters. Now, I'd learned my lesson about the Werner algorithm, and was much more careful this time, and they actually did pretty okay with their hunt. Soon I was standing in a supply closet in Engineering, knee-deep in a heap of disabled bots… and that's where and how Mr. Olsen caught up with me."

The humans were laughing by now, and Scotty sported a sheepish grin. Spock reflected that this could hardly have been the Scotsman's sentiment at the time of the story, nor were the others likely to react with such gaiety if one of their current cadets had done something similar. But clearly once enough time had passed, a new perspective might be allowed - _water under the bridge_ , as the Doctor would say, or maybe _letting bygones be bygones_. He always found it difficult to forgive his own past mistakes - but it was possible that there was something beneficial to this group sharing of failings…

"He dragged the whole story out of me, and then he started shouting. I don't think he stopped for breath for the next several hours, even as he worked side by side with me to fix each and every bot. I didn't know there were that many different ways of saying _stupid_ in Standard, though he did have to veer off into Klingon at times. He was pretty impressed with the reprogramming I'd done, though, and I think that was the only thing that kept me from being thrown out an airlock. Finally, as I, miserable and well-scolded, sat tinkering with the last bot, he added insult to injury by catching the damned Snatcher in three minutes, by an ingenious method. You'll never guess how!"

"He put out a saucer of Ferengi milk, or somesuch?" Suggested Chekov.

Scotty blinked. He opened his mouth and closed it again, and then said, flabbergasted, "now, how on Earth would you know that, lad?" This sent the other humans into paroxysms of laughter.

"Scotty, it's what anyone else would have tried!" Uhura finally managed to get out, tears of laughter on her face.

Scotty looked at Spock helplessly, but even the Vulcan had a tell-tale glitter in his eyes. He nodded. "It is methodologically very similar to how escaped sehlat cubs are regularly captured on Vulcan, Mr. Scott."

Scotty finally smiled ruefully and scratched his neck. "Well, ah… Maybe I am too caught up in my technical world, sometimes."

"Something that has on occasion saved tens of thousands of lives, Scotty," Kirk said, trying unsuccessfully to get his laughter under control, "we wouldn't want you any other way."

"What happened then, Mr. Scott," asked Chekov.

"Well, I got a reprimand, of course, and quite well deserved. Another scolding from the captain, which I'll never forget, and a punishment to match the havoc I'd created. You've heard of people joking about cleaning decks with toothbrushes? I had to go over all of Engineering for stray Snatcher hairs with a small sonic vacuum. It took me three weeks. And then, Mr. Olsen banished me from Engineering for two months, before he finally took pity on me and brought me back. Two months of bridge gamma-shift duty. I've never been so miserable.

"Hold on a minute," Kirk interrupted, "bridge duty as a punishment?"

"Well, yes. I mean... It's not that the bridge isn't important, of course. During a crisis, like an attack, it could arguably be said to be the very heart of the ship, and then someone more senior would have replaced me..."

"Arguably?"

"I meant definitely. Definitely. But the rest of the time, you see..."

"So when there isn't a crisis, the bridge isn't particularly important?" Kirk's voice was deceptively mild.

Scotty squirmed. "No, no! A lot of important work is done on the bridge, all the time. Talking to people. Eh… Course changes. And…", he felt like a cadet having a blackout during a test. "Mr. Spock does star charts," he came up with. "Well, I guess that can be done from the Astro-lab too, but there are so many other things. Important things."

"...Important... Things…" Kirk said slowly, gaze locked with the Engineer, who was opening and closing his mouth, searching for words. The others were grinning.

"Admiral…"

"Scotty, I think for you, not so much with the talking right now." Said McCoy, "I have a feeling that anything you say is just going to make this worse. I prescribe alcohol."

He filled the prescription, and Kirk finally let the engineer go with a smile.

"Oh, she's as much yours as she was mine, Scotty - as much as she belongs and belonged to any one of us. For you engineers, the heart of the _Enterprise_ was always Engineering - pumping out the life blood that kept her flying." His voice deepened, and he looked around the room, a serious tone to his voice and smile. "For others, her heart will be other places. Or other things. Or people…", he met each of their gazes, reaffirming the bond that had made family out of them, through the ship, and the idea that ship had stood for.

It was Bones that finally broke the silence with a carefully measured grumble, "There you go, Jim, destroying the festive mood. I say we're not nearly drunk enough for emotional speeches yet. We should stick to remembering stupidity and youthful naiveté!"

"Well then," responded Kirk, "I believe you owe us a story, Bones!" The others agreed loudly, and after a few minutes of protest, McCoy threw up his hands in surrender.

"Oh, alright. But I maintain I never agreed to any such thing. And if you," he jabbed his finger at Spock "ever so much as hint about what I'm about to tell you after tonight, I'll make a mistake with your next allergy meds and give you Tennyan Giggling Sickness."

"Spock will behave" assured Kirk. Spock only raised a noncommittal eyebrow, a glint in his eye. "Now come on, Doctor! Tell us about the beads and rattles."

With a last suspicious look at Spock, McCoy harrumphed and then got started…

* * *

 **Author's note: Next up is the doctor! Then Uhura, Chekov, Sulu and finally Spock. Sulu got written in because I got some very nice suggestions for his tale from you guys.**

 **A huge thank-you to my wonderful beta readers for this story – DelJewell and WeirdLittleStories. I'm learning so much from them.**

 **What did you think about Scotty's tale? Please leave a review!**


	4. Chapter 4: McCoy's Story

**Chapter 4: McCoy's tale**

"Well, you said wanted the beads and rattles story… Incidentally, this is also the story of how I became a sacred healer of the Moon Goddess..."

"As you know, after a few years of private practice in Georgia, Jocelyn and I finally had the sense to get a divorce, and I entered Starfleet. Strange new worlds, as far away as possible from Earth, was exactly what _this_ doctor ordered for himself. After that one-year fast-track thing at the Academy that they make medical specialists go through, I finally got my commission and was sent out - all the way to the small, dull anthropological research station orbiting Eta Gamma Three."

"After the first week or so, things settled down into mind-boggling monotony. The anthropologists watched the planet, and I watched the anthropologists. The Starfleet crew mostly chatted with and monitored the few ships that passed by in the distance. I had really set my sights on a ship assignment: to get out to the frontier, meet and save new and exciting aliens, earn their undying gratitude, you know the song. But ensigns can't be choosers, as the Fleet saying goes." He shared a grin with the others.

"Now, there's nothing to say that ensigns can't be curmudgeons, bitterly huffing about the injustice of the universe, and that was a tradition that I was happy to propagate. I'm sure my general attitude wasn't helped by the fact that I felt both overqualified and underqualified at the same time. I was nervous and overconfident all at once. I had a few years, and lots of hands-on-experience, on most of my colleagues - but the fact that I hadn't gone to the Academy proper, meant that I wasn't quite used to all the military speak and routines of a Starfleet posting..."

"You know Bones, that might have been true then, but at some point that excuse is going to wear thin," laughed Kirk. "Did you ever learn proper Starfleet address to superior officers, for instance?"

"Sure I did, Jim," replied Bones with a grin, "you sprinkle in a random _sir_ here and there, and train them to stay out of your sickbay. On this particular occasion, though, I would soon be _wishing_ for a few senior officers…"

"Lieutenant Thomson, head honcho of our little group, was planning on an undercover fact-finding mission to the spring festival of one of the largest settlements. The Eta-Gammans were just entering the D phase of the Richter culture scale, and everyone was so excited about their new steamboats. I would have given anything to get off the station at that point, and a field trip to a spring festival sounded ideal. _Spring festival_ \- you can almost feel the booze, the food and the dances in the word, right? I bullied Thomson until she finally gave in, more from exhaustion than from my long and detailed arguments, I'm sure."

"They had us all surgically altered around the nose and forehead, and kitted out in these long sari-like garments - just length after length of cloth that was to be tied in very specific ways, and God, or rather the Moon Goddess, help you if you tucked the wrong bib here or had too long a train there. Vendettas and marriages have started for less, on Eta Gamma. We all had small anthro-tricorders disguised as scrolls and hidden in shoulder bags, and subdermal translators. I'd never been on an undercover mission before, and Thomson got me to solemnly swear that I'd be quiet as a mouse and still as a tombstone - or, as Thomson put it: pipe down, button it and shut your pie hole. You getting lost on the idioms yet, Spock?"

"Not at all." Spock replied with a raised eyebrow. "Though I generally find it most efficacious to only take note of every third word that you say, anyway, Doctor - any more attention rarely improves the intelligibility." The others chuckled, and McCoy decided to forego a counter-thrust. Spock had finished the plate of food the doctor had forced on him earlier, so he figured he could afford to be gracious. This time.

"Anyway, down we beamed. We had a few hours' walk to get accustomed to the atmosphere and to establish our cover story of having hiked in from a particularly far-off settlement. We started meeting more and more travellers on the road as we approached Sin-ta, and Thomson and her assistant chatted them up. I was dutifully quiet in the background, though I longed to bring out the tricorder from my emergency aid packet and get some close bio-data on our hosts. But I was good."

"How long did that last, Len?" Asked Uhura.

"Oh, several hours. All the way until the evening meal on the festival grounds - you'd have been proud of me, Nyota. Scanning and staying in the background. Finally I think even Thomson forgot about me, because the anthropologists were all dragged in various directions as their particular research fancies took them, and finally I found myself alone at our table. It was one of those long, low tables, cushions all around, braziers hanging from the trees around us. Incense in the air. Very spring festival-y."

"But then…" he took a swig of his beer and gave them a chagrined grimace, "Well, it was a communal table, so anyone could come and join me, and anyone did. Several anyones. They had these delicious little cakes, and spirits so strong it made my eyes water. And I couldn't not talk to them - I mean, that would have been unthinkably rude, right Jim?"

"Of course, Bones, of course."

"So we talked, and everything was good for a while, until we had a new beast appear at our watering hole. She was undeniably one of the warrior caste, could probably break me in half with one hand. She was also, equally undeniably, hitting on one of the young girls, this lovely creature with short brown hair and curves in all the right places. I didn't like that one bit. I was a little bit jealous, which was stupid because even I knew that I couldn't let anything happen between me and a local, anyway. And, well, since this little exercise of ours seem to require some soul baring... maybe there was a bit of ageism involved as well - the girl was in her early twenties, but the warrior must have been in her fifties - practically ancient! Couldn't be right!"

Jim laughed, "Yeah, that's one kind of bigotry that inevitably comes back to bite you, isn't it. Doesn't seem like such a horrible age difference from this side of the fence, does it Bones?"

"I clearly had no idea of what I was talking about. But I think, and hope, that the _main_ reason that I got all irritated was that she claimed to be some sort of field medic, and started trying to impress the girl with her brave battlefield rescues. I'm okay with some exaggeration in the service of a good tale, but it quickly became clear that she was inventing things left and right. For lack of something to do up on the station, I'd spent quite some time studying what we knew of their medical science and bio-physiology, and she was inventing things out of thin air. It annoyed me. So I started to… ask pointed questions and challenge some of her claims. Yeah, Nyota, I can see what you're thinking, and yes, pretty soon I was revealing far too deep of a level of knowledge of Eta-Gamman biology, and maybe, just maybe, bragging a bit of my own."

"I don't know at what point the warrior, (her name was Tav or Kav, something like that) became more interested in me than the girl - ha, no, not like that, Scotty, this isn't one of those tales - but suddenly I was getting the third degree. At this point I realized that I was being dragged out of the shallows and approaching the shark-infested deeps of a true Prime Directive breach…"

"I was about to try to extricate myself when she clamped down on my shoulder - grip like a vise! - and said in a voice that brooked no argument, 'You are a healer from the Goddess's temple.' I answered something non-committal, looking desperately around for a superior officer, or anyone with any kind of previous undercover experience, really."

"But Kav wouldn't take no for an answer, and was hauling me up. 'Come,' she said, 'my brother is badly wounded. You must join the circle of healers.' And then she dragged me off, over my protests - firm and vicious, but muted, since I couldn't draw any more attention to myself. We went straight across the festival green to a large brown canopy erected down by the river. There was no way I could reach my hidden communicator without her seeing…"

"Inside the tent there was a circle of onlookers, mainly from the warrior caste, and inside that circle was the circle of healers, standing around a raised dais where a middle-aged male was lying. His long hair had started falling out. That's a sure sign of approaching systems failure in Eta-Gammans. And he was sweating like, well, like whatever the Eta-Gamman equivalent of a pig is. I'm a doctor, not a zoologist."

"As I got closer - and I got closer because Kav was dragging me through the onlooker circle up to the healer circle - I could see that he had a partly healed wound in his stomach. Kav introduced me as a healer, and said that I would join the circle. The medicine man in charge - really, they might have invented the steam engine, but medically speaking they were still tasting urine and using leeches - grunted and held out a long, carved stick at me and said "this is a Prince of the blood. You will take the death-promise with me to help him."

"Death promise?" Asked Scotty. "I can't say I like the sound of that."

"Yeah. Pretty common for societies where the medical arts are at such a low level that it's often just as well to call a priest as a healer, and sometimes better. By making a death promise, you show that you're not just another charlatan – if the patient dies, you die."

"Well, now I was up the creek with no paddle. I should just have said no, and tried to run away, and if that failed I should have refused to speak another word, and just hoped that the others would be able to extricate me somehow. But chances were that the warriors would kill me for doing any of that when their Prince was dying. Also, _the Prince was dying_. I'd made some pretty stupid mistakes in the last hour or so, but I wasn't about to crown them by so blatantly betraying my Oath. I couldn't step away, not if there was a chance that I could do something.." McCoy sought the others' gazes.

"Of course you could not," said Spock.

"Really?" Said Kirk, pursing his lips in thought, "One man's life against possible planetary upheaval, a Prime Directive breach. I'm not saying it's an easy choice - Lord knows that I've made both good ones and bad ones when it comes to this kind of situation myself - I'm just saying I'm not sure that this is an of coursesituation."

"You misunderstand me. I meant that of course Doctor McCoy could not." The calm words could have been be interpreted as a slight, but there was no condemnation in the Vulcan's eyes, but rather acceptance and support. _We are what and who we are_.

Bones cleared his throat. "No. No, I couldn't. So I took the stick and repeated the oath after the medicine man, and the moment I fell silent someone thrust this big rattle in my hands, and Kav shoved me towards the line of healers." He made his voice lighter on purpose. "It was rattlin' time! We healers started moving around the Prince in a circle, shaking our rattles, and starting up what fortunately turned out to be a very simple repeating chant to the Moon Goddess. I went along as best as I could, rattling and dancing, though I did get a few nasty looks when I stepped on the other's feet. Someone somewhere started a drum beat, which helped."

"As I got closer to the Prince, I saw that the wound had festered. Such a stupid waste of a life! Something that could be cleared up in half a minute with a lucial sanitizer, and then the wound could be closed with the dermal regenerator. And here a man was dying from it. I swear, there are days I think the Prime Directive isn't worth the pixels it is written with - all that suffering…"

"But back to the story. So there I was, swaying, chanting, rattling my rattle along with the best of them, half a meter from my patient, with no chance of helping him. I decided that I had to do something radical, so I threw up my hands and shouted 'I must pray', and quickly turned from the circle, grabbed my bag, fell to my knees and started praying loudly as I rummaged around in it."

"The Prince, the dais and the ground were covered with these big, dried, red seed-pods. I knew that they were seen as a symbol of luck and happiness - Eta-Gammans would place little gifts inside them and give to those they courted. I grabbed one of them, reconfigured my little first-aid med tricorder to look for inflamed tissue and set it to vibrate, and tried to insert it inside the pod. The first pod broke in pieces, and so did the second one, and by this time I was getting some nasty looks from the onlookers. I figured I didn't have much time before my 'praying' would get interrupted and I'd be pulled back to the conga line. Finally it worked, and now I'd gotten the hang of it and managed to get my sanitizer inserted in another one. Both the tricorder and the sanitizer work by radiation waves, of course, so the thin walls of the pods wouldn't interfere with them."

"Gingerly I pulled them out, one in each hand, and went back to the circle dance, swaying with them for half a turn before breaking the circle and going up to the dais. I'd seen a few of the others do this from time to time, so I figured it was okay. I then started chanting at random, waving the pods over the Prince, feeling my way over the wound. It worked surprisingly well, and I'd just managed to sanitize most of the tissue, when I heard a loud explosion nearby, and then everything went black…"

"I woke up aboard the station, with a horrible stun hang-over, to the face of a furious Thomson. They'd finally found out what I was doing, had repositioned the station defense phaser battery towards the planet, and then stunned everyone in the field to extract me. Anthropologists hate using the 'miracles' and 'acts of god' excuse to cover up a botched field maneuver, and Thomson was spitting fire. It was well deserved, so I tried to be as meek as possible - the hang-over was making the meek part fairly easy."

"There's a point when you can't continue scolding someone who agrees with you, so eventually she wound down, and I realized that apart from being scared to death of the cultural contamination, and my safety, she was also pretty sure she was going to lose her position. She'd been the one responsible. She'd let me come down when she probably shouldn't. She'd left me - clearly an incompetent fool – alone. She'd failed to extract me in a subtle manner."

"I spent the next few hours writing a report that exonerated her as much as possible. I then called up some of my friends on Earth, including Jenna, who was the assistant Surgeon General, thinking that they might have some pull with Starfleet. I even called Rear-Admiral Moss, he was sector commander at that time, and asked to make an addition to my report - a report he hadn't even seen at that time. He dragged the story out of me, and then he shouted at me for some time, but finally agreed that it was more my fault than Thomson's.

I'll never know exactly happened behind the scenes there - I think Jenna clinched with Moss about the Hippocratic Oath, and the imperative to heal, and in the end both me and Thomson ended up with demerits and another scolding, this time from the head of Starfleet Anthropology Division himself… But we kept our jobs. Thomson got to stay over at Eta-Gamma, and after a few years she even spoke to me again. I'd call us good acquaintances, though not friends. We had dinner in San Fran just two months ago. They did transfer me off the research station rather fast, into the inoculation research labs working on Dramia II, and, well, you all know the story of that little hell hole…"

"We do, Len," said Uhura. "You saved a lot of people there, too."

"What happened to the Prince?" Asked Chekov, and for a moment he seemed far younger than he was.

"Ah, you mean King Sen, supreme ruler of the lowlands? Oh, he's still alive and kicking. Took the general fainting of his attendants, and his own miraculous healing, as a sign of the Goddess' approval. He is some sort of warrior-priest-king now. Yeah, no luck with hoping our interference wouldn't have any cultural effect. Luckily he's one of a hundred warlords, and it'll be at least a century before anyone can manage to unify continents, let alone the planet, so at least I didn't cause a planetwide change so far." McCoy smiled. "You know, I wonder how many of Earth's own stories of people being abducted and medically experimented on, came from bumbling aliens trying to study our pots and pans or whatnot…"

"Not by the Vulcan observers," said Spock drily. "Humans were generally not deemed to be particularly interesting."

"Oh really? Took your Vulcan ancestors a thousand years to go from D to E on the Richter scale – took your human ancestors about a hundred..."

"Technological advancement that is mainly channelled into war and oppression is neither true advancement nor particularly noteworthy."

As McCoy and Spock leaned into their argument, Chekov heard the door buzzer go off. Kirk glanced over at it and then asked the younger man, casually. "Would you get that? It's probably the caterers coming to clean up."

Chekov smiled, but was a little put out at being sent to open the door. He tried to push that feeling down, but was not feeling particularly gracious when he pressed the lock button.

The door opened to reveal a grinning Sulu, a large bottle in one hand, a force field umbrella in the other.

"Hikaru!" The two friends embraced. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be up obsessing over your ship?"

Sulu laughed and pressed the bottle at him, snapping off the umbrella and tossing the stick with careless precision into an umbrella rack on the side. "Oh, no, don't you jinx it, Pavel. Not my ship yet, not by a long stretch. But, yes, I'm helping out with the oversight." He nodded at Kirk, almost a small bow, who had come up to the door to join them, clearly quite pleased with the surprise. "The _Excelsior_ is a real beauty, Admiral. I'm very grateful for your recommendation."

"You've earned it, Hikaru. Come in, I'm happy that you could get away – though not as happy as Pavel is, I wager."

Chekov grinned and dragged his friends over to the sofa group by the fire. Deep space was dark, exciting and sometimes fatal. It was hard to explain to civilians, no matter how dear they were, what the night before shipping out was like. That's when you wanted your 'Fleet family beside you – people who understood the terror and the excitement, the knowledge that you might never come back, or that you might be the first to find something so amazing that it changed the universe. And this night would have felt wrong without Sulu here.

McCoy and Spock called a temporary cease-fire, and the humans embraced or shook hands with the newcomer. Spock only nodded at Sulu, but then said something in a low voice that made the human laugh out loud. Many in the 'Fleet suspected that Spock did in fact, contrary to common belief, have a (very dry, dead-pan) sense of humor – but it was only to a select few he would reveal it so openly. Most of those were in this room tonight.

Uhura and Chekov filled Sulu in on the evening's tales as he devoured the leftovers with the hunger of someone who had lived off of 'Fleet rations for several weeks. Kirk noted that risks had become greater, enemies scarier, and victories grander, already in this second retelling. He wondered what would happen once the stories inevitably got loose among the cadets. Spock had told him that a group of nervous computational track cadets had approached him just the other day and asked him if he had really, truly, built a computer out of bearskins and stone knives... The Vulcan had, of course, refused to answer, and instead ordered them to write a ten page essay on how such a thing might be accomplished. Kirk looked forward to reading it.

Sulu was listening to Chekov's version of McCoy's story – the Russian was waving the doctor's attempts at corrections away, saying that you should never weaken a good story with facts. Sulu laughed and shook his head, "Gods, those undercover missions...!" He turned to Uhura, "actually, if we're telling stories about undercover missions and princes, you have to finally spill the beans about what really happened with that very young prince on Piri V. There are all kinds of rumors going around about why you got those demerits... You always manage to weasel out of telling that one."

Uhura tried to protest, but was quickly overruled, and eventually gave in with a laugh. "Alright! Alright, you win. Yes, there was a prince during a certain mission on Piri V. And yes, a young prince. But, and I wish to state this for the record, gentlemen, not too young. I checked. Admittedly, I checked afterwards, but I was actually a hundred percent sure that he was a legal adult even at the time. After all – it was his wedding night..."

* * *

 **Author's note: Next up is Uhura (unofficial working title "a Kirkian solution"), then Chekov ("Irina's Academy Revolution"), Sulu ("Biggles!") and finally Spock ("How to train your AI").**

 **DelJewell and WeirdLittleStories did a superlative job with the beta reading as usual – I'm very grateful for all their help.**

 **What did you think about Bone's tale? Please leave a review!**


	5. Chapter 5: Uhura's Story

**Uhura**

"Dear God, Piri V…" she laughed and shook her head, and let herself relax in the armchair. "What a mess it was - and I mean the planet, the mission, and me! Tell me, did you follow that old historical holo adventure series, _The Rise and Fall_?"

Chekov and Sulu nodded, but the older men looked blank, except McCoy who frowned. "Was there a swarm of teenagers who always seemed to have far too few clothes between them? With sling-shots and spears? In a post-apocalyptic city, with… lots of rival gangs?" Uhura nodded, and the doctor grinned. "I once stood in line for two hours on Starbase 7 to get some sort of special edition to send Joanna for her birthday. She was addicted to it when she was little…"

"That's the one, Len. Epic teenage love and betrayal among the ruins of post-Eugenics-War New York. And I swear, the moment we made planetfall on Piri V, I knew that the producers of that holo had to have illegal observers hiding out there, because it felt as if we had just stepped onto the set!"

Her voice took on a more somber tone. "I don't know how much you know about Piri. They had been maybe a decade or two from achieving warp tech when the whole planet was devastated by nuclear and biological war. Automated retaliation strikes, atmosphere wreckers, gene-modded plagues - as bad as it ever gets. The Andorians had been responsible for first-contact preparations, and they had had everything planned down to the decorations of the treaty signing hall, when things very quickly and very fatally went to hell. They were angry enough to chew nails. I don't want to be uncharitable, but I think it had at least as much to do with losing access to the Piri dilithium mines, as it did with the loss of life…"

Kirk nodded. In his opinion, Uhura was being far too gentle in her description of the Andorian commission's attitude.

"Ever since then, they've been petitioning the Federation to re-evaluate the planet's recovery. So Starfleet does, every fifteen years or so."

"When we got there, it was sixty years after the war, which meant that the second generation had grown up and taken over - a generation that had never known anything but ruins. More than four out of every five people had died, most in the illnesses and starvation that followed once the bombing finally stopped. It meant that the new post-apocalyptic culture was still very fragile and changing - and very young. Most leaders were in their early 30's.

That still gave them a few years on me and most of the people in my landing party detail - a lot of us were in our early 20's. I was 21. We'd been on a training cruise on the _Payne-Gaposchkin_ for four months, and this - to be part of a real, honest-to-God undercover mission! - was our reward. We cadets were incredibly excited - it was time for some galaxy-saving heroics! No matter that our heroic part specifically consisted of staying very still in the background while the first officer and the communications officer did some fact checking, and then, at the appropriate time, put in a power pack and press a button, once. A single big green button..."

She cleared her throat, leaned forward and said in a mock serious voice, "Now… Mr. Spock, are you familiar with the idiomatic construction 'you had _one_ job…!'?" she started, putting an exaggerated emphasis on 'one'. The others laughed, seeing where her story was leading, while Spock raised one eyebrow as he dutifully searched his memory. Uhura had long ago figured out that his seeming difficulty with human idioms was mostly feigned, and varied according to his present tolerance for human peculiarities. But sometimes, especially if prosody was at work to indicate sarcasm or irony, it could become something of a challenge for the Vulcan.

"The construction has an ellided relative phrase, 'you had a single job, which you failed to do'."

"Indeed." She grinned at him and winked at the others. "Well, I don't think I've ever prepared so much for a mission. I must have re-read the briefing pack a hundred times. I memorized what little we had on the pre-war languages of the region. At that time, the people at our contact site spoke a fast-evolving creole with a single lexical superstrate but with what was probably no less than three grammatical substrates."

Uhura ignored the confused expression on Scotty's face, considering it fair payback for his recent and lengthy rant on the inner electro-harmonics of the warp transistor, and ploughed on.

"I went through the manual for my universal translator signal booster with a fine-toothed comb. I practiced for hours in the gym, learning to use the discrete exoskeleton that they had grafted onto our lower legs and arms to help us move naturally in the higher gravity. My native costume was freshly fabricated: patchwork-repaired flowing pants in dark colors, a very tight grey plastic top and a sort of full-body, green, sheer veil that the locals thought might help with radiation. My hair was impeccably messy, my nails manicured to uneven, stubby perfection, and I had spent the small hours of the morning in the anthro lab, carefully adding another layer of grime and patina on my leather boots…"

"In short, I felt like the queen of cadet adventurers, fully deserving of the praise and the several commendations that I had gotten during that training cruise. My roommate said that I was all smug superiority, hidden under a thin veneer of demure humility." She waved away the polite protests of the others, "oh no, she was right. I was really good - and I knew it, and that made it hard to admit when I screwed up…"

"That single green button was on the UT signal booster I carried. The planet-wide war had wreaked havoc with the technology level - some continents had regressed all the way back to hunter-gatherers . The ruined cities where we were headed had widely varying tech levels - they didn't have the know-how to get the fusion power plants up and running, but they did have portable sun-powered generators that could give them electricity in a local area. Their synthesizer network was down, and their medical science was almost eradicated, but somehow they'd made weapons a priority…"

she exchanged a wry glance with the doctor, who muttered a few choice curses, before she continued:

"They had a few blasters, but with no way of repairing their power packs, these were mostly for display. They had some ballistic guns, but ammunition was a problem - so the general preference was for arrows, sling-shots and spears."

"And, most frustrating for us, they did retain quite sophisticated scanners to monitor different kinds of radiation and signals, and big ugly EMP boxes that they would regularly use to flood their perimeter… This made several things rather tricky, including transporters, coms and the universal translator. Lieutenant Iverson had had us working on the problems for weeks, and we finally came up with a solution to make sure they couldn't detect the UT network or the orbital link."

"Basically, we needed to create a hidden local UT network, distributed so that each unit picked up new examples of the language, and transmitted its findings to the others in short, very discrete bursts. It'd mean a lot of power use, but we couldn't use regular field power packs, because there was just the chance that they'd be detected - so our plan was to use replaceable old BB-batteries. We also needed to keep the signal boosters close to the landing party, so their subdermal translators wouldn't suddenly shut down, and they'd end up speaking alien and expose themselves. This all means that we couldn't just beam the signal boosters down on their own. We needed boots on the ground ready to remove them if we'd miscalculated. And the brass figured that if there was one thing that cadets could actually be trusted to supply on a real mission, it was boots."

"So there we were, in our green shimmering veils, with carefully disguised boosters and power packs in our backpacks. They beamed us down in teams of four to the outskirts of the city, and then we separated and made our way one by one to our assigned coordinates. We knew approximately where the real landing party was going to be - there was a wedding celebration in progress. Two of the mightiest warring clans of the ruined city were going to sanctify their alliance with an arranged marriage - the younger brother of one of the leaders was going to marry the other leader."

"The wedding party was going to make their way through the city, stopping every block or so for entertainment and speeches, until they finally came to the young man's apartment. Our superior officers were going to pose as foreign guests, and gambled on bringing enough gifts to be included in the heart of the parade. They wanted to observe it, and the leaders, close by, to see if this was the alliance that could maybe herald the start of an era of stability and peace…"

"I was stationed right outside the young man's apartment…"

"The young prince!" said Sulu, grinning.

"The young post-apocalyptic prince, all alone in a post-apocalyptic wasteland!" supplied Chekov in an overly dramatic voice.

"Probably pining," said Sulu, nodding sagely.

"Oh shut up, " Uhura said with a smile. "You can embellish the tale all you want afterwards, but right now it's mine to tell."

"Many of the big skyscrapers had fallen down in engineered earthquakes and tsunamis, but there were still several eight-to-ten story buildings standing. Nature had begun reclaiming the glass and concrete, and the early summer meant that facades and sidewalks were peppered with verdant moss and little purple and yellow flowers."

"The parade wasn't expected for a few hours yet, but people were setting up a picnic of a sort in what once must have been a municipal garden about a block away. The mood was festive, and some sort of impromptu cooking competition had begun between members of the different gangs - their language was rather aggressive, but by local standards it was probably as peaceful as it ever got. I didn't know exactly what kind of small animals it was that they were roasting on their spits, and I was careful not to find out…"

"The entrance to the bridegroom's building - a big, almost intact tower - was being decorated with braids and garlands made of plastic string, and everyone was helping. I was crouching down out of the way, shredding old plastic bags into wide plastic yarn, going over everything in my head once again."

"Veil, check."

"Properly grimy boots, check."

"Powered exo-skeleton, check."

"Not attracting any attention, check."

"UT signal booster, check."

"UT booster power packs…" She trailed off, and Sulu beside her groaned in sympathy. "No check." Even after all these years, the memory of the panic that she'd felt gave her an icy feeling in her stomach.

"I'd forgotten the packs. They were still on the bunk in my quarters. All that preparation, all those briefings, all the careful studying that would enable me to stand on the street and push the button when the landing party was coming in with the other guests… and I'd forgotten the one thing that really, really mattered!"

"Oh, I could have killed myself! Or maybe just vanished into Pirean society, never to have to face anyone from the ship again. I wish I could say I had an excuse - that I was distracted by someone else, that I had to rush off to do something vital. But no - I'd been high on adrenaline and anticipation, and it was just one of those stupid mistakes."

"Well, we all know what we'd want our cadets to do at this point, right? Well, I didn't, of course. I really, really should have swallowed my pride and run out of the city as fast as I could until it was safe to use the com, and then asked for an extraction or for someone else to beam down outside the EMP zone and jog in with the damn battery packs… But this was my first mission on my own. I couldn't screw up like that, not when Iverson had done nothing but heap praise on me for the last month. I had the know-how, I knew that given the right materials I should be able to jury-rig a solution in the field." She rolled her eyes and caught Scotty's amused head shake. They'd had a situation like this just the other day - sometimes the cadets with the most potential made the worst mistakes. "If you wondered why I intervened between you and cadet T'Nara last week, Scotty, well this is it. I think that brilliant, infuriating young woman was given to us for my sins…"

"Of course, this was when the little battery indicator started blinking discreetly. I knew I'd be literally speechless in a minute - I needed to get out of there before someone tried to communicate with me and it became abundantly clear that I neither understood them nor could answer! So I thought… well, what were all those Academy classes in electro-mechanics for, if not for this! I mean - how hard can it be to improvise a Bayden-band-compatible battery pack in a post-apocalyptic society? The answer to that turned out to be… interesting." She paused to let her audience laugh. Scotty got a far-away look in his eyes as he contemplated the problem.

"Well, I needed wiring, and a power source. The only building around that I knew had power was the tower that we were currently decking with garlands. So I snuck around to the back, tripled checked that no one was anywhere near, broke the safety valve on the exo-skeleton with one of those 'don't ever tell anyone that I taught you this' tricks that we definitely don't show last-year cadets, and made a twenty-meter jump straight up to a fourth-story balcony."

Kirk gave an appreciative nod, but McCoy shook his head. "Lord Almighty, I hate those exo-things. They make people think they're gods, and that they can go grand-standing and jumping over buildings without tearing out their tendons and crushing bones." He gave Kirk and Spock a meaningful glare. The Vulcan just looked straight ahead. Kirk tried protesting, "But there were all these Klingons, Bones…", but it sounded rather weak, and the doctor just snorted. Uhura saved them from a (by now well-known) lecture by smoothly picking up the story again.

"Well, I landed on the balcony - I won't say I was cat-like, but I was pretty proud of myself. That feeling of satisfaction quickly evaporated when I looked up and saw a young male Pirean standing in front of me, behind what turned out to be, close up, a pretty transparent curtain. He had a certain deer-in-the-headlights kind of look - not that surprising really, when a stranger does a superhero jump and lands on your balcony. I remember thinking 'Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream!' and raising my hands in what I hoped was a peaceful manner. But instead he dropped the glass he'd been holding with a crash, dropped to his knees, lowered his eyes and started speaking in awed tones."

"I had no idea what he was saying or what he was doing."

"We didn't have much data on this phase of the creole - I'd made sure I had a basic understanding of some of the pre-war major languages, but this was a creole, a mixed language, just being born and formed. It was beautifully complex: the lexifier language was from a southern language family, and high on the fusion-synthesis axis, the major substrate of a northern family and heavily asynthetic - the lexicon was underspecified to the extreme…" She sighed, "Oh, I won't bore you with the delicious details. You're all brutes when it comes to linguistics anyway - turn on the UT, and the machine solves all your problems." The humans smiled at her a little sheepishly - they appreciated the work that went into the translator, but it was something that was generally taken for granted, like artificial gravity. Only Spock raised an eyebrow in protest, but Uhura just wagged a finger at him.

"Oh no, you may have an exception once you agree that actual comparative linguistics should be on the cadets' training course curriculum, not just algorithm optimization - it's a talk-the-talk, walk-the-walk kind of deal, Mr. Spock."

The Vulcan did not, of course, sigh, but gave her a long-suffering look that she was entirely unmoved by. There was a constant battle between various disciplines for what should be included in the curriculum: if Scotty got to decide, the cadets would do nothing but applied physics and warp mechanics, and Sulu thought that everyone should really be able to do warp speed battle maneuvers, just in case. It was similar to the way that the different departments' requests for additional personnel and computer allocations had always clashed back on the _Enterprise._ Then, as now, Spock would eventually work out a compromise, but Uhura had long ago learnt that it didn't pay to back down from her own demands until that point. She gave the besieged Vulcan a smile, and went on with her story.

"I stepped past the curtain separating the balcony from the apartment, and he scrambled backwards, still talking. The room was luxurious - pillows and salvaged tapestries everywhere, a table set for two and a large bed. Along the wall was a defunct pre-apocalyptic synthesizer that really caught my interest - it had been converted to a niche for some potted plants, but there was nothing to indicate that the machinery wasn't still in there…"

"My mind was working overtime - I knew some words from the lexifier language, and I had some theories about sound changes, so I could just about start picking out the copula and some verbs from his speech. And then I figured out a single noun, spoken with awe: _zarija_."

"And all of a sudden, I had the beginnings of a plan. It was crazy - but at least it was a plan."

"One of the stronger language change patterns I'd detected was a general softening of initial plosives and the elision of word-final consonants – the word had to have been _darijan_ in the pre-war lexifier language. And a _darijan_ , I knew, was a kind of spirit, a magical trickster being that could bless or curse ordinary folk. Quick as the wind, strong as the ocean. Or strong as her exo-skeleton, in my case. Well, as long as he thought I was a local spirit, that would take care of the prime-directive breach – it wasn't a good save, but it was within acceptable limits."

"Someone knocked on the door - the crash when the man dropped his glass had been rather loud. The person on the other side on the door seemed to ask if everything was alright, and called the man in front of me _heren_... well, let's say it meant 'prince' to make the story more epic, Sulu, but really, a better translation would have been 'boss.' I realized then that this young man at my feet was no other than the prospective bridegroom himself! And even as I cursed myself, I brought my hand up to cover my mouth, in what I'd learned was the local 'be quiet' gesture. He looked dazed, but then blinked several times in assent, and shouted something towards the door. We were left alone."

"A very strong fruity alcoholic flavor was spreading through the room: the prince was a bit intoxicated. Nerves, I imagine - he was maybe two hours away from an arranged marriage, and I don't think he'd met his bride-to-be before. The Pireans had very few restrictions on sexual interactions, so it wasn't that: polyamory and casual sex seemed to be the norm all around, with the only restrictions being, fortunately, consent and adulthood. Marriage thus had little to do with sex or procreation, but everything about leaving your clan for another: blood oaths, promises of eternal loyalty – life-changing, heady stuff. And on top of that, he had just seen what he, quite logically, had deduced was a fairy-tale monster walk through his balcony door."

"He continued talking, and I walked around him, letting my fingers trail over his shoulders while I puzzled together a very minimalistic sentence. _Izi lan hami_ \- tell me about yourself. Actually, I think came out more like 'Say me yourself', but it seemed to work fine. He kept talking, his eyes still resting anywhere but directly at me, and I suddenly remembered that folklore said that _zarija_ could steal people's souls if you looked them in the eyes..."

"Well, that was perfect. I put my hand over his eyes, took off the large thin veil with the others and tied it around him as a blindfold. I pulled him up, put him in the chair and said _hami, hami_ – 'speak, speak!' - and he continued talking. And then I slumped down, very un-magic-spirit-like, in the other chair and took several quiet, deep breaths."

"I had a little less than two hours before that door would open, and the bride would arrive. Somewhere in her train would be my superior officers, and right now there was no translator service active in a radius of maybe five hundred meters around me. I had to get the booster powered up, somehow!"

"There were solar panels along the window - but I needed a way to get that weak current into my power pack. I went to the synthesizer and removed the front panel. Someone had torn out some metal in there, but most of the circuitry was fine, but dusty. It took me awhile to figure out what I was looking at - but as we always tell cadets, once a culture has figured out the isotropic matrix, there are only so many ways you can put stuff together. I decided that the easiest way to recharge the thing was to immerse it in a electronegative solution, so I needed an acidic, low-ph bath. Luckily, we know where to find acid in a typical synthesizer construction, right Scotty?"

"Ach, yes..." Scotty nodded thoughtfully. "Clever. But that would ruin the power packs after the first charge. It's a bit, well, it's a bit inelegant."

"We can't all have your genius, dear," said Uhura and smiled at him. "I was quite pleased with my inelegant solution."

"Well, I'm thoroughly impressed. You thought of everything!" said Sulu, and the others nodded their agreement. Uhura gave them a wry look.

"Oh, don't say that just yet... I'd just dumped my power packs in a hastily evacuated flower vase to recharge and inserted the lines from a few solar panels in the solution, when I heard a shocked gasp behind me."

"I'd gotten so caught up in my tinkering that I hadn't heard the prince's tale fall silent. Maybe the taboo against looking at a _zarija_ wasn't all that strong anymore, or maybe he'd started to doubt me because of all the weird sounds I was making, because he'd peeked out from his blindfold and was now staring at me quite intently. I looked more or less like a Pirean, but I was doing some decidedly non-fairytale things. I couldn't have that. So, before he could start to question me, or even worse, call for someone, I simply went up and gave him a long, hard kiss."

She blinked innocently at the admiral. "I mean, what else could I do?"

He nodded seriously, "Quite. I mean, what's the alternative, really?"

"Right! And he turned out to be a very enthusiastic, if a little inexperienced, kisser, and seemed to have forgotten all about the fear of soul stealing! About an hour later…"

"Nyota!" Protested Sulu.

"Oh no, a lady doesn't kiss and tell. I leave the rest to your imagination - but I'll tell you this much: I had no problem asserting that he showed enthusiastic consent in my report, at least," she said with a laugh.

"And meanwhile, my power packs recharged nicely. I picked them up, put one into the booster, blew the prince a kiss from the balcony, and disappeared over the ledge in a single heroic jump into the bushes below. And if that jump ended in an undignified sprawl because I hadn't quite gotten used to my super strength and the dampeners, well, at least the prince didn't see."

"I was back on the street, in my veil, well before the wedding party and my superior officers made it to the tower, quite ready to press the green button. I was nervous as hell, though, not knowing exactly what the fallout would be from my little run-in with the prince - but any tales told of _zarija_ didn't seem to cause any upset, because the celebrations seemed to go off without a hitch. Since I was the last cadet on the route, Lieutenant Iverson and Commander Paul gathered me up, and we walked (I limped) out of the city together. They remained quite pleased with the whole mission, talking about how the translator solution had worked great, and there seemed to be a real possibility of a more stable state formation…. Well, they were pleased right up until they asked me for my report…" She trailed off, happy that as awkward and embarrassing that particular conversation had been, she could look back at it with a smile now.

"Lieutenant Iverson gave me a long stern talking-to about irresponsibility and exactly how disappointed he was in me. It was absolutely devastating, and only slightly undercut by Commander Paul trying her best not to laugh in the background. I knew I had earned a reprimand, but not quite, shall we say, the extent of it or how it would be phrased. The next several days I was pulling extra night shifts, quite happy to be deep into the hottest computer core if it meant I didn't have to face the lieutenant. I swore I'd never forget my equipment again, and forced myself to make some soul-searching personal log entries about pride. I can't tell you how happy I was that when the full mission reports were finished, the only thing that was entered was a demerit for me, with the blessedly vague phrasing 'for carelessness with equipment and interspecies relations.' A few years later, Iverson and I met on more equal terms, and he admitted that he had been quite impressed with my quick thinking, but I don't think he'll ever stop needling me about my alien prince in the tower. And, I suspect, neither with you," she finished with a sigh, half amused and half exasperated, seeing the other humans' grins.

"I see no need for any such reminders," assured Spock.

"Why thank you, Mr. Spock, you're quite the gentleman." She sighed. "Unfortunately still a brute when it comes to linguistics, but a gentleman."

"As much as I appreciate your expertise, I cannot make curriculum changes based on an anecdote," Spock argued. "At the very least I would need a position paper."

"Oh but of course, Sir, that seems reasonable," said Uhura, sweet innocence on her face. She picked up a nearby pad, made three clicks on it. "It just so happens that I have one at hand. There's a thirty-page request waiting for you in your inbox, at your convenience.

He gave her a look, but rather quickly admitted to himself that he was outmaneuvered, as the others started to laugh around him.

"You might as well give in gracefully, Spock," said Kirk. "I think Nyota has shown us all the importance of linguistics in the handling of interspecies relations." Jim's eyes had teared up from laughter, and Spock reflected that it had been too long since he'd last seen him so free from the crushing weight of the admiralty.

"Indeed. It seems that I shall have to reevaluate my position on the matter."

"Uhura, your story-telling is so good, it even corrupts Vulcans!" said Sulu, letting the smiles and whiskey make him daring enough to tease Mr. Spock. Kirk laughed again, and Spock gave the younger man a tolerant, even slightly amused, glance.

"I shall reevaluate my position, based on the commander's logically stated and, I am sure, carefully researched arguments. Should changes be made, and greater weight be put on linguistics and communications, cuts shall of course have to be to other sections of the curriculum. Since the additional navigational modules you yourself have argued for were the latest, and therefore least integrated, parts of the training simulations, you might consider submitting a counter-proposal yourself."

Sulu groaned and sank deeper into the sofa, and Scotty patted his shoulder and said cheerily, "chin up, lad. We're only trying to get you up to speed for the workload you'll have once they finally give you the _Exelsior._ Think of it as... friendly challenges."

Sulu gave him a dirty look, "I think I'm just going to shut up, drink my drink and listen to Pavel's story."

"Oh no, this isn't fair," protested Chekov, arms crossed in defiance. " _Enterprise_ was my first posting - you already know far too too many stories of stupid things I did back then! I don't think I want to give you more ammunition."

"Oh, not that many stories, Pavel," said Bones. "There was a reason you ended up on bridge Alpha shift first thing - and unlike Scotty, the rest of us thinks that bridge duty is an actual honor." Scotty started to protest, ( _I was just talking about engineers!_ ), but McCoy waved him to silence. "But sure, if you don't want to tell a story yourself... Hey, I remember you refusing to admit that you had Timorian flu, even when your voice sounded like you'd been inhaling helium… I could tell that story."

Chekov shook his head vigorously and opened his mouth, but was interrupted by Uhura, who threatened, smiling: "Or I could tell one about when you and Riley tried to reprogram the olfactory interface for the universal translator…"

Chekov gave her a scandalized look. "You can't! You promised…"

"I remember when you reinstalled the navigational computer of the _Galileo_ with the wrong Z-axis" mused Sulu with a wicked gleam in his eyes, "all measurements were upside down. Jones ended up bouncing off the wall of the cargo bay…"

Chekov groaned. "Alright, alright - enough! You all be quiet, and I will tell you a story. Blackmail, is what this is! But I'm going to need something stronger than this," he waved at the whiskey. "I think this is a story that can't be told without proper vodka."

* * *

 _ **Author's note: I wanted Uhura to get to do a Kirkian solution to a problem! What did you think?**_

 _ **Thanks to my beta readers DelJewell and WeirdLittleStories for their patience with my English. My native tongue is Swedish, and I'm slowly learning about capitalization and those weird hyphens that should apparently go everywhere... :- ) In Swedish, Uhura would be a kadettäventyrardrottning 'cadet+adventurer+queen' – compounding galore!**_

 _ **Next up is Chekov, and a story about him and Irina Galiulina (from The Way to Eden) at the Academy...**_


	6. Chapter 6: Chekov's Story

_Author's note: Starfleet is very utopian – but does have some darker sides. One of them is, I think, an almost paranoid fear of mental enhancement. I have assumed that that fear makes other kinds of bodily enhancement a matter of grey area. We know that a century after TOS, Julian Bashir was in danger of being kicked out of Starfleet because he had been mentally enhanced as a child (his IQ raised to genius level) by his father on Adigeon (DS9 5x16: "Dr Bashir, I presume")._

 _Another darker side is what happens when Starfleet officers, or others, use their considerable powers for bad purposes. This story references Garth of Izar, a brilliant Starfleet captain who went mad and almost caused an ethnic cleansing. Garth appeared in the TOS episode "Whom Gods Destroy." I have invented an earlier controversy in his career. I also mention the sect leader Dr. Sevrin and his follower, Irina Galliulin. Irina is an idealistic, opinionated former Academy cadet and love interest of Chekov. They both appear in the episode "The Way to Eden." There are also references to Spock's brother, Sybok, who, like Dr. Severin in that episode, is also a charismatic, manipulating sect leader on a galactic quest for enlightenment (he appears in the The Final Frontier movie)._

 **Chekov's Story**

Chekov groaned. "Alright, alright - enough! You all be quiet, and I will tell you a story. Blackmail, is what this is. But I'm going to need something stronger than this," he waved at the whiskey. "I think this is a story, that cannot be told without proper vodka."

Sulu laughed and went up to rummage through the liquor cabinet. A small fleet of various glasses already littered the table, testament to the humans' sampling of the household's various offerings. Spock noted that detox tablets were also used regularly, by everyone except Scotty who had many and loud opinions on the subject - he considered it cheating. Sulu returned with a transparent bottle of vodka, and Kirk went to get several smaller glasses out of a cupboard. As usual, there was a symbolic glass for Spock as well. As usual, he declined with a small shake of his head.

After fortifying himself with the vodka, Chekov sighed and started to ponder which story to tell. It was dark outside - or, as dark as the sky-high glittering cityscape of San Francisco ever really got. The rain had let up, and a faint waft of cherry blossoms seemed to come in through a half-open window. They were too far up for it to come from the actual cherry trees, though: the smell had to have been manufactured by the building's climate control.

Artificial… but no less sweet...

"If I have to tell a story about demerits, I'll tell you about the one reprimand in my file that I am actually proud of. Subversive activities leading to general unrest, I believe it says. The Autumn Revolution of the Academy Graduation was what we called it."

"Or, to give credit where credit is due, it was what Irina called it. She had, and has, a way with words, and knew how appearances can change substance. There is a Russian saying: _the dough follows the pan._ Content is shaped by the way it is presented…" Chekov looked a bit lost in thought for a moment, but then looked up and gave them a weak smile. "I think it will be hard for you, who only met Irina once, and under rather bad circumstances, to understand what a brilliant person she can be. She scored higher than me on the entrance exam to the Academy. And she got in even though she spent most of her interview ranting about the fascist rise of militarism in Starfleet! You do not have to agree with Irina, to feel the power behind her words and her convictions…"

He looked around the room. The others looked sympathetic - Sulu squeezed his shoulder - but of course they couldn't truly understand. The one time they'd met Irina Galliulin, she had been a member of a anarchistic political sect, seeking an Eden untainted by technology and Federation rules. The group had managed to temporarily take over the _Enterprise,_ and used it to reach their Eden only to find it beautiful but deadly. Some had died immediately from the poisons. Irina had survived, her world in tatters in more ways than one…

A fleeting expression on Spock's face caught Chekov's notice. Ever since the Vulcan had returned to them after V'Ger, Spock had been more liberal with when he choose to lower his controls and show expressions, at least among his human friends. Now a haunted look of recognition passed over his face before it was replaced with the unreadable professional mask that only Kirk, and sometimes the doctor, could seem to interpret. Chekov saw the admiral glance sharply up at the Vulcan, and for a moment he looked like he was going to say something, but in the end he subsided.

Maybe it was the way the sect members had died... Spock had demonstrated a surprisingly affinity with their leader: the charismatic, almost hypnotic, Dr. Sevrin, with his impossible quest. Almost as if he had known him - or at least someone very much like him - before.

But no, he did not want to dwell more on that fateful episode. Tonight he wanted to remember Irina like she had been back at the Academy, all fire and brilliance. He forced lightness into his tone.

"Well, at the time of this story, we were second-year cadets - no longer the little kids who didn't know the difference between a fabricator and a synthesizer! No curfews! Actual training scenarios away from campus! Me, Irina and Hyp, a gender-fluid human from Mars, shared some rooms in the Archer building, and life was exhausting but sweet."

"Irina and I were still a couple, though it's quite apparent in hindsight that we were growing apart. When we first entered the Academy, we'd been so synced, it sometimes felt like we were one mind in two bodies! I guess that's what hormones do to you. We could talk for hours about the galaxy, about how exploration was the birthright of all sentients, about all the planets we were going to walk on. About how we were going to be a new brand of Starfleet officers - reforming the service from the inside. Yes, we were very much a part of the 'exploration not exploitation' wave, very worried about what we saw as the growing militarization of Starfleet. The Romulans had been quiet for decades, and the Klingons were busy on their outward frontier, after all… Were planets pressured, openly or secretly intimidated, by Starfleet to joining the Federation? There were all those rumors, and then New Luna happened... "

There were wry grimaces and sighs among the others. Every Starfleet officer had an opinion on New Luna, and captain Garth's intervention there. Had he helped the government strike down a budding, violent revolution, with just a few well-aimed, threatening phaser blasts to the surface? Or had he interfered in local politics, used military force against what was a peaceful, if very angry, opposition movement?

"Well, that led to some epic arguments between us. I supported Garth, Irina thought he was a homicidal nutcase... She said I was being seduced by the Starfleet narrative, buying the propaganda, becoming all stiff and regulation loving. I asked what she was doing at the Academy at all, with those views… Bah, no matter. We argued, _da_."

"But one thing that we still agreed on was that the Federation in general, and Starfleet in particular, was bigoted against gene-modded humans. The laws are outdated - old leftovers from the panic after the Eugenics Wars, centuries ago. And they're so vague! Give a deaf child a cochlea implant, change the sex of someone, do peptide reprogramming of the amygdala to remove clinical depression - no one thinks that is strange. But if someone goes to Adigeon to be enhanced with higher intelligence or perfect pitch, they're looked at like they are freaks, and Starfleet would never accept them."

"Well, I agree with you, at least partly, " said Uhura. "But there's a lot of unease about mentally enhanced people, Pavel. It might not always be fair, but resequencing of the human brain often leads to very bad things. We seem to be very corruptible, once we have more power than other humans around us. We've seen it again and again."

Kirk felt a chill go through him, and remembered with perfect clarity the power-hungry madness in Gary's eyes, after contact with the barrier had enhanced him. Spock, seated in a chair to his right, was rocked out of his own remembrances ( _Sybok, brilliant, charming and deadly, that last day before he was exiled from Vulcan and set out to find his own Eden_ ) and gave the admiral a concerned glance.

"Is your story specifically about mental enhancement?" Spock asked Chekov.

"Ah, no. No, _izvinite_. A discussion for some other time. There's a slippery slope, I admit. But I, for one, was quite convinced then, and still am, that it is right to put pressure on the 'Fleet to be more welcoming of bodily modifications, at least." The others nodded: on this they agreed.

"Back when I was at the Academy, it was even harder than it is now. No cyborgs. It didn't say so in writing, of course, but that was how the rules were generally interpreted. And what was a cyborg, and what was a necessary health modification - well, that was all a case-to-case issue, but it was clear that there was plenty of pressure from the powers that be to keep the campus 'natural.'"

"Now, up until the end of our second year, just weeks before graduation, all our talk about the discriminatory Academy policies had been very idealistic and theoretical. But then something happened that changed all that in an instant."

"We'd been on Luna, on a two-day exhausting training scenario on Olympus Mons, when I slipped and fell from a high cliff. I was clumsy, and enjoying the lighter gravity a little too much. Maybe, just maybe, showing off a bit for Irina, as well. It might have been the end of me, but Hyp caught me by the finger tips, and hauled me up in one single motion all the way to safety. No one had missed what had happened, and once it became clear that I was stupid and alive, and not stupid and dead, everyone turned to Hyp, who had gone very quiet."

"The truth came out fairly quickly. Xe had carefully hidden cybernetic implants all through xir arms and legs. Like the exo-skeleton that you talked about, Nyota, but far more sophisticated, implanted in the muscles themselves. It wasn't a life-saving thing - xir mother was from Mars, a Federation citizen, but xir father had come from Adigeon, and on Adigeon they think that enhancements are a natural thing to give their children, a sign of love."

"Xe'd lied about it on xir entrance forms, which might be technical grounds enough to expel xem, even if it hadn't been for the no-genetic modifications-paranoia. But xe'd also saved another cadet's life. And Adigeon might not be a Federation member, but they were, and are, quite important. Half of our med tech comes from there, right Doctor?"

McCoy nodded, "They're devilishly clever."

" _Da, ya soglasyen._ Hyp was the first one with Adigeon blood to enter Starfleet, and the Adigeans were quite aware of xem. So things got political. Someone somewhere clearly didn't want to offend Adigeon by expelling their first Starfleet cadet because xe had an augmentation that was considered natural on that planet. But it was equally clear that other someones really didn't like having enhanced people at the Academy. Sure, xe promised that he'd not had any resequencing and brain upgrades, but could they trust xem? Was xe programmable by enemies? Just how unnatural was xe?"

Scotty shook his head in disgust, "That's such a daft argument. Unnatural. What's natural, I ask. It often seems that anything that we like is natural, and anything we dislike, we think of as unnatural."

Chekov nodded, "But even if you know that, well, _xorosho_ , but it's still pretty hard to be faced with all that condemnation. Hyp wasn't exactly placed on temporary suspension, but xe had a number of visits from bureaucrats and brass that xe couldn't, or wouldn't, talk about. After every such meeting, xe looked grimmer... "

"When the graduation ceremony for the last-year cadets came up, we decided to finally corner Hyp. And it was just in time - we found xem with packed bags. After some shouting, we found out that xe had been pressured to solve the problem for Starfleet by simply quitting, preferably before the holo-sent graduation ceremony, where we, and the rest of the second-years, would be in the background. Xe had decided not to go to the ceremony, and didn't want any more help or intervention from us. We could tell that xe was sad and angry, but xe didn't want to cause problems for the service. Xe more or less threw us out of xir room."

" _Bolshie idioti..._ The whole situation made me so angry that I wanted to hit someone, but luckily Irina was all cold, calculating rage."

"The Academy is quite good at shutting down protesting cadets," mused Sulu.

"Most of the time it's for the greater good," Kirk felt compelled to argue. "We're not a civilian organization; there is a reason that we have proper channels for complaints. We should be open for external criticism, regulation and control, but we can't have open internal dissension."

Even as he said it, he wondered on how much the Admiralty had changed him. He'd always believed in the discipline of the service, but was he really arguing, however circumspectly, for censorship and cover-ups? Did he want to be in that corner? When he'd been out in the field, the inflexible, intimidating, official Starfleet organization back at HQ had seemed like a straitjacket more often than not. How often had he argued with superiors, sometimes even on the bridge, frequently in tones that earned him harsh, though usually unofficial, reprimands from Nogura or Komack later? Now, when he was trapped in that organization himself, he regularly thought that protesting junior officers simply lacked a holistic understanding of the complexities of strategy and politics… He couldn't reconcile the two parts of himself, and for the first time that evening he felt the old, familiar blanket of faint bitterness descend on him. He ignored Bones' and Spock's looks and forced a charming smile on his face, a twinkle in his eyes: "But there are always ways to steer around that, right Pavel? Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?"

Chekov smiled and nodded enthusiastically. "Hyp was well liked, and even if xe hadn't been, I'd like to think that the others would have stood by a fellow cadet. _Da_ , we knew we could get the support of a lot of others, and we were reasonably sure that we could make a plan that wouldn't leak to the officers. That's something you figure out how to pull off pretty early on, right Hikaru, or there'd never have been those secret parties in the old fusion reactor hall?"

Sulu coughed, "Actually, I'm not so sure we were as clever as we would have liked to think we were. I don't know for sure if we got away with it, but I know that my cadets are 'secretly' converting the engine room of the old, derelict _Sanger_ into an unsupervised holo-deck right this minute. As long as it's not, you know, actively dangerous, we tend to just let them go along with it. Wonderful security training," he said, grinning.

Scotty nodded, "Oh, we had secret parties in the fusion reactor hall in my Academy days too, lad. Wouldn't surprise me if all your instructors had been there themselves, in secret, once upon a time." Kirk and Uhura nodded in recognition as well.

The doctor gave Spock a look,

"What about you Spock? Any illicit Academy parties in your sordid past?"

"Of course not, Doctor," said Spock, with a disapproving glance. Honesty compelled him to add, however, "Though I did participate in acoustic experiments in the reactor ante-chambers, the official status of which I am not, I regret to say, entirely aware of."

"Acoustic… you mean you took part in music jam sessions with that lyre of yours?"

"Pereteon-reinforced echo chambers make harmonious sine waves revert…"

"Oh, I'm sure it was very important research, Spock," said the doctor magnanimously. "And if people danced and had fun, those were merely irritating side-effects."

Chekov gave them all a sheepish look, "I guess I never thought about it like that, before… Ah, well, I'm pretty sure that this particular plan remained secret, or we'd have had the disciplinary committee come down on us like a ton of transparent aluminum."

"We spread the word, or rather, Irina did. She made it sound like a moral absolute, an epic and noble stance that no right-thinking being could refuse: a revolution against oppressing norms and institutionalized discrimination! And when the day came for the rehearsal for the graduation ceremony, we had over a hundred cadets signed on. We had, ah, borrowed a lot of exo-skeletons from the training arenas, bright silvery ones that ended in big gloves that were hard to miss. Most of the others merely wore them, using haptic control to let the skeletons enhance their natural movements, but a few of us – who just happened to be on the honors list - injected ourselves with nanobots that let us control them subconsciously. By strict definition, we were all cyborgs! We figured that if they wanted to pressure Hyp into leaving, they'd have to get rid of us too!"

"Our little flock made it as far as the entrance to the auditorium before a very angry lieutenant - do you remember Belen, Hikaru, Nyota? - stopped us. He didn't know what was going on, and didn't care - the only thing that mattered to him was, understandably, that we were turning the rehearsal into some kind of spectacle. We tried to explain, politely, about this being a protest for the treatment of Hyp - not the easiest thing when a three-meter Andorian is shouting at you! He indicated very forcefully that we were not to bring politics into the service, and I remember Irina, oh she was spectacular, looking up at him with this calm yet fierce look in her eyes even as all the rest of us were starting to tremble. She said 'Politics are already in the service, Sir. We're just adding some old-fashioned integrity!'" Chekov grinned at the memory. "God, how I loved her back then."

"But Belen certainly didn't, and I don't know what would have happened to our little protest if Director Ahyoka herself hadn't shown up, alerted by all the noise, and wondering what was happening to her ceremony. She sorted everything out quickly - it took her about a minute to determine that we were the ring leaders and she told us to wait in her office and then, to our surprise, let the rest of the people into the auditorium, exo-skeletons and all."

"It was a pretty nervous wait for us. Slightly over four hours. As the minutes ticked by, I started to wonder if our plan had been all that good, to start with. And I started to think about how Hyp would react - xe hadn't known anything about it, had asked us to stay out of the issue. I think Irina got more and more certain, and I more and more unsure, as the time dragged on. Belen had given us very clear orders, when he escorted us to the director's office, to wait in silence, so we couldn't really talk about it either…"

"When the director finally showed up, I'd started to imagine all of us faced with dishonorable expulsion, and, which felt even worse, that Hyp would never ever talk to us again and leave Starfleet in disgrace. Even Irina looked a little unsettled, but that usually just made her double down on her opinions."

"The director gave us a long look, sat down behind her big oak desk and asked us to tell us the whole story from the beginning."

"Once we'd done so, she said, clearly and directly, that she agreed with us about the politics of the situation. They stank. She hadn't known about the extent of the pressure put on Hyp by others, and she'd spent a good deal of the previous hours figuring that out. She seemed very angry about it - she said that the interpretation of regulations on campus was up to her to decide, and she wouldn't accept that people, no matter their rank, used them to bully and threaten her cadets on her campus. She said that Hyp was excellent officer material, that she didn't care if xe had augmentations to xir body. Because xe had lied about the presence of the exo-skeleton on the forms, Ahyota had made it a requirement for further enrollment that Hyp to undergo a short medical examination to rule out that xe didn't have any mental resequencings that might turn out to be a security risk or could cause sudden personality changes later on. Hyp had agreed, and it was being taken care of right then, so that it'd be out of the way and xe'd be able to join the rest of the cadets for the ceremony the day after."

"Now, as to us… She was very clear that she wouldn't tolerate political activism on the Academy campus. If we wanted to do that, there were hundreds of civilian universities to go to. She said that if we didn't trust in the Starfleet process, we were welcome to leave, but if we wanted to stay in the service we would have to trust that we could go to our superior officers with our concerns - and that we could go to their senior officers, if we didn't feel that we were heard. She was going to add an official reprimand to our files, but with a long note explaining exactly why we had done what we had done. And she said that if she knew us right, she figured we'd wear those demerits like badges of honor."

"I was ecstatic! I didn't even care that we had to spend five weeks manually breaking down, cleaning and refitting over a hundred exoskeletons. Irina seemed almost… disappointed. Later I figured out that a part of her must have wanted to be kicked out, to go out in a blaze of glory. She managed that, eventually, about a year later when she organized protests against the Five Year Missions. She was saying it gave too much power to Starfleet officers to act for the Federation, including using deadly force, far away from oversight and control. I disagreed. We argued. She went to the media, and the Academy kicked her out, which of course gave her more publicity, so she was quite pleased."

He toyed with his drink, "I still think she would have made a great officer."

"I disagree," said Kirk. "No, hear me out before you protest. Where is she now?"

"She's, ah, she's the leader of an paleo-anarcho-liberal group on Mars. She seems to spend most of her time pressuring the government about Starfleet overreach, and how we're far too dependent on technical tools, and how power is too centralized and, oh, about a thousand other things. But she is very good at it. Right now she's in Paris, lobbying the council about the budget - too much money spent on tech, especially weapons tech. She really doesn't like the new stations along the Romulan border."

"She seems driven and competent. Is she happy?"

"...Yes. Yes I think so."

"Then I think that's where she needs to be. And where we need her to be. Starfleet is not the end-all of the Federation, Pavel. We need civilian counterparts to watch us, pressure us, make us better, keep us honest. With her temperament, she can be of more use to Starfleet outside than she could ever be on the inside. And you carry some of that fire, too - you'd never stand for abuse of power, Pavel. One day you'll have your own command, and we'll all be better off for that part of your personality."

Chekov felt like he wanted to argue, but he admitted to himself that he wasn't quite certain about what, and the more he thought about it, the more sense the admiral seemed to make when it came to Irina. He settled for nodding and muttering a " _spacibo_."

"If she's in Paris right now," Kirk continued, "ask her to come over to San Francisco and look me up. I'm pretty deep in those budget discussions myself. She can tell me her arguments about those outposts along the neutral zone, and I can tell her mine. The bottom line is that they're not a good idea - but unfortunately, right now they're a necessary one."

Chekov brightened. "Thank you, sir! That'd be great. Though, I'm sure it'd be very hard to convince her..."

"Oh, it'll be good practice for when I have to have the same discussion with the Vulcan ambassador in two weeks…" he shared a look with Spock.

"What happened to Hyp?" Asked Uhura.

"Xe was really angry with us, but really moved at the same time. No one had stood up for xem like that before. There were some long discussions, and I felt like an idiot that I hadn't included xem in the plans… But xe forgave us. And xe got a commendation for saving my life on Luna at the graduation ceremony! I hear it was a great occasion, I wouldn't know since I was knee deep in exo-skeleton parts at the time..."

"Hyp's head of security out at Deep Space 3 - spouse and three kids and the whole package. At least one of the kids has two extra cybernetic arms, and looks like a little miniature Kali goddess! I hope she decides to apply to the Academy one day; I'll back her application to the hilt."

The others raised a toast to him. Then Scotty said that he didn't get the Kali reference, and Uhura pulled up some pictures on a pad to show him, and Sulu started reciting what an Indian friend of his had told him about the goddess. Chekov leaned in to take a look at the pictures, when his eyes were caught by the antique clock by the wall.

It was just past 1 a.m. More relevantly, it was T minus three hours, four minutes, forty-five seconds, if the old piece could be trusted.

Forty-four seconds.

Forty-three seconds.

Suddenly, the nerves that he'd been so successful at keeping down, started acting up, and he felt his heartbeat increase. It was stupid. There was really nothing more he could do, just now. Still, he felt the restlessness returning, and he got out of his chair and wandered over to the open window, letting his fingers tap a staccato rhythm on the window sill.

Spock observed him go. It was not difficult discerning the cause of his distress. He looked at Kirk and McCoy, thinking that they would no doubt intercede, but found the latter giving him a firm nod towards the Russian. He was somewhat surprised by this, but agreed, on reflection, that he was the most logical choice, though he generally found it more comfortable trusting these things to the more sensitive humans.

He joined the younger man by the window, observing the cityscape spreading out beneath and around them. A velvet darkness full of little twinkling neo-neon lights all the way to the bay and then continuing in Marin County on the other side of the water. At some indiscernible point, the land lights started to compete with the lights on the crafts that filled the night sky even at these hours. Further up were a few artificial stars – Spacedock 1, Mir 43, ten thousand satellites and the orbiting crafts of hundreds of worlds.

One of those lights up there was the _Reliant_.

"When do you leave?" Spock asked.

"The shuttle leaves from over at HQ at 0412. It'll be me and Dak, the Sulamid Chief Engineer, that go aboard first. We made a deal with the refit crew. The rest of the senior crew come aboard at 0800. The captain's official welcoming is at 1415, though I wouldn't be surprised if he sneaks aboard before that."

The last few weeks had been daunting, non-stop work. 17.5 hours on duty, then a sleeping pill and 6.5 hours sleep, because he knew he wouldn't be able to keep going for long without it. Then up for another 17.5 hours. He'd worked side by side with Captain Terrell, learning his superiors officer's strengths (many, Chekov was impressed) and weaknesses (he wasn't as imaginative as Kirk, and it was imperative to keep coffee at hand at all times), as they staffed the _Reliant_ and oversaw the customary upgrades that all ships had whenever they had any longer time in spacedock. Right now the ship was 'getting an airing', which was a strange term since it involved shutting down every system, including life support, and letting it fill with vacuum. Then, system by system was engaged and turned on, the progress carefully monitored by two independent groups, one in Spacedock, one in southern Pakistan. Slowly the ship would come to life, and be declared fit to fly and entrusted to carry the lives of 220 sentient life forms into the darkness of space.

Any mistakes that could have been made with the upgrades, should really already have been detected. Really.

Spock was a well of calm beside him, and without really meaning to, Chekov found himself talking again. "Everything should be fine. It's just that... there are still so many things to do. I don't have a final recommendation for the captain for the computer and power allocations. I've run thousands of simulations, but each department wants more. I have four scenarios that all work, but I don't know which one it best – they all have different strength and weaknesses. And every hour I spend on that, more things keep piling up." He took a deep breath, and cracked an uncertain smile, "Well, I guess it can only get better."

"It will not," was Spock's laconic reply. That really got Chekov's attention, and he looked uncertainly at the Vulcan. "Your workload will average at approximately this level for the foreseeable future, with both increases and decreases. It will, however, be easier to handle once you have more practice."

"It is an important part of your job as first officer to reduce the complexity of command decisions for your captain. It is not necessarily your job to make those command decisions. There are many ways to structure a command team, but I believe that the most fruitful one works akin to a funnel. You do not have four scenarios for computer and power allocations – you have thousands. You have whittled it down to four, and that is as far as you can take it. Leave the rest to the captain. You do not have time – you have to move on to the next problem. That will also present thousands of possibilities – reduce them to a manageable number, give them to the captain to decide, and focus on to the next task."

He tilted his head and focused all of his attention on Chekov. "You will find your balance."

Chekov took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He let Spock's confidence seep through him, chasing away the tumbling thoughts and doubts. They would be fine. They had trained for this, they had Starfleet's best and brightest, and whatever challenges the universe held, they'd find a way through them.

Spock considered him for a moment, and then nodded once, decisively. "Shall we rejoin the others? Mr. Sulu seems to be in some difficulty."

They turned back to the chairs and sofas by the holographic fire, and Chekov saw that Sulu was doing his best to fend off the combined onslaught of Scotty and Uhura, who demanded a story. Spock reflected that the commander's reluctance seemed to form part of a social ritual that had formed during the evening, whereby a series of protests had to be made before the next person would finally agree to share a narrative. Chekov, spirits lifted, joined the effort.

"I've paid for my supper - now it's your time, Hikaru!"

The Japanese man slung out his arms. "How am I supposed to have a reprimand story to compete with yours, you being all heroic and noble?"

"That would be a familiar problem for you, yes?" teased Chekov. "One would think that you would have come up with some strategies by now."

Hikaru laughed, and made a show of looking around the apartment. "Well, I usually try to find something that I can drive around at impressive speeds; that tends to distract people. Weren't you talking about getting an old-style motorcycle, Jim?"

He directed the last to Kirk's back. He and Uhura were on their way out to the kitchen to look for something to eat, but he paused in the doorway and made a wistful face.

"One of many dreams crushed underneath the red tape of Starfleet Command. There's a small cleaning bot hiding under the bed, if you're really desperate. It whirs along quite fast."

"I think I'll pass... Well, I'll have to settle for a story about something fast then, maybe... I guess there's always the time I, ah, borrowed a Starfleet airplane. And by borrowed, I mean stole. And by airplane, I mean a Cerberus A3 Hoverer."

Kirk's head popped back out from the kitchen, suddenly alert.

"Did you say something about a Cerberus A3?"

Sulu nodded and grinned.

Kirk continued, a little too fast. "We're talking an old Eugenics War, four-engine, inter-atmo fighter plane?"

"That's the one. But a replica."

"With or without the grav-field addition?"

"Without, but with a modern graviton-stabilizer addition to make it comply with safety standards and flight control protocols."

Kirk wrinkled his nose. It was a long time since he'd been a helmsman, and nowadays they barely let him fly shuttles. But he still fancied himself a capable pilot, both within and outside atmospheres. "You wouldn't need that, that just destroys the whole idea of the original design. God, I would do anything to get my hands on one of those! Ah... I missed the story, what did you do?"

"He stole it." Explained Spock, dryly.

"Oh. Well. Obviously, I would not... steal a plane. Being a Starfleet admiral, and such." Kirk did not sound terribly convincing, and it made the humans laugh and Spock raise an amused eyebrow.

"I find myself doubting your sincerity, Jim."

"Oh, are you really one to talk about stealing ships, Spock?" countered the doctor. "Isn't that a specialty of yours?"

"Spock always returns them in good form, Bones, that's more like... illicit borrowing," said Kirk, defending the Vulcan and making light of old incidents that he knew Spock would never take lightly. "I take it that that wasn't what happened here?"

"No," said Sulu, and made a face. "I wrecked it pretty good. The smoke did quite a trick on the engine, but at least it got its moment of fame on the six o'clock news..."

* * *

 _ **Author's note: Next up is Sulu (and the Cerberus, a dare, and a forest fire...), and then Spock ("How to train your**_ _ **AI.")**_

 _ **Oh, "the dough follows the pan" is not, to my knowledge, a Russian saying, but then who am I or you to ever contradict Chekov on these issues? :-)**_

 _ **Maybe I should reveal a guilty pleasure:**_ _ **I've always kinda liked the reviled episode Way to Eden - but maybe only because I choose to see it as the hippies reminding Spock of his brother and his exile and quest, and then I choose to think of the episode being all about Spock missing Sybok...**_

 _ **This chapter is a lot better for the loving attention that my beta readers DelJewell and WeirdLittleStories has given to it.**_

 _ **I love every review – consider leaving a word or two. I hear reviewing has an anti-aging effect. :)**_


	7. Chapter 7: Sulu's Story

**Sulu's Story**

"So, basically, you stole a replica of a historic Cerberus A3 Hoverer from Starfleet?" prompted Uhura, once the low table had been filled with bowls of snacks and (at the doctor's insistence) fruit, and there really was no way for Sulu to delay any longer. "How was there even such a thing to steal in the first place? I mean, I get budget cuts, but 250-year-old equipment?"

Sulu smiled wistfully. "Oh, I would have traded those crotchety training shuttles we had back then for a Cerberus any day, but no, unfortunately the Cerberus wasn't part of the normal training fleet…"

He settled back, fondly remembering the excitement of even those training shuttles. All that power at your fingertips. Nothing could beat that feeling.

"We had the First Contact annual celebrations coming up, and there was going to be a historical aerial parade of inter-atmo vessels - everything from a real, honest-to-god zeppelin, to blackhawks, to Y-class freighters, to stealthers. And the Cerberus was to be the jewel in the crown - every kid gets taught what those things did to the warlords' forces at the Anatolian Plateau battle back in the Eugenics Wars, and now the crowds were going to get to see one in reality… They just look so stunning, black and sleek, all that power thrumming through the air, reverberating in your very bones…"

"Anyway, someone above our pay grade - I'm guessing the public-outreach people at HQ - had decided it was worth fabricating a new one, and once it was deemed flightworthy and fitted with all the extra bells and whistles it needed to take part in the parade, they had stuck it out in a hanger up by Kentfield, north of San Fran, and set a bunch of us second-year Flight cadets on painting the last few touches on it. Now, that took about an hour, and then, since our time was clearly worth very little compared to everyone else's, we got stuck out there for the rest of the day… with no supervision. And… well…"

He spread his hands sheepishly, "There was this beautiful antique plane there, you see. And I'd clocked thousands of hours in the simulator for inter-atmo aircraft…"

McCoy rolled his eyes at him. "That's not the same as flying the damned contraptions, now is it? Dear God, I can see where this is going…"

"Well, in my defense, admittedly my very _poor_ defense, but still, there was also a competition going on between the blue and the white flight wings at the Academy..."

Uhura groaned. There was _always_ a competition going on between the blues and the whites. This year, it seemed to be about how early you could cut the warp envelope as you came out of warp, at least judging by some furious e-mails from flight control that had been circulating around Academy Faculty. There was a fine line between guts and stupidity, and it seemed as if the older generation always thought that the younger had missed it by a mile. Or half an astronomical unit in this case...

Kirk, intimately familiar with the idea of the competition from his own time at the Academy, looked pretty scandalized. "Do you mean you brought a civilian up with you in a Cerberus, Mister?"

Sulu blinked. "What? No?" He suddenly grinned. "Just what kind of competition did _your_ year have, Admiral, sir?"

Kirk actually colored slightly. "Eh, nothing. Not a thing. Carry on." Bones, Uhura and Scotty laughed uproariously, but before they could ask further questions, Kirk waved at Sulu, "Now, now, this is Sulu's tale, don't be rude and interrupt him." Sulu laughed, but took the very clear hint, and continued speaking over the others.

"Alright, alright, so the agreed-upon rules for our batch was to find as many different things that could fly, for some definition of flying, and post a picture of us piloting it on a private com-grid. Now, the blues already had a balloon flying over the pyramids, a paraglider over the Grand Canyon, and and one of them had even talked her way onto an old chemical rocket launch on Mars… So we whites were at a decided disadvantage, and would need something bold and cool to start evening the score."

"Like, say, a real Cerberus A3!" Supplied Chekov, and Sulu nodded.

"But how did you get it off the ground?" Asked Scotty. "Even if you were out in the middle of nowhere, surely the automated flight control system would tag you straight away?"

The more congested the skies became, the more everyone relied on the complex global flight-control systems to oversee the many different flight lanes. Vessels could fly fairly close, but major hubs like San Francisco could still be a congested nightmare sometimes.

Sulu smiled, but it had a slightly uncomfortable edge. "Ah. Yes. Well, a Cerberus would certainly be something of an anomaly, and would probably be noticed by Starfleet, but only if the system thought it actually was a Cerberus, you see. It took me about half an hour with the transponder to convince the thing that it was a regular training shuttle instead."

"You can do that?" Asked McCoy, surprised. "I thought those things were locked down when vessels left the factory?"

"Sure. I mean, it takes some fiddling, and you have to get root access, which of course is not a walk in the park, but once you have that, there are about three hundred lines of code that you have to alter manually. The basic transponders are the same all over the fleet; you can do it with vessels of all size. Like if you know that you can fit in in a spacedock berth, but the automated systems won't authorize it, you can sorta change your official size and…"

He met McCoy's outraged gaze, and faltered…

"Vessels of any size, Sulu? Would that include Constitution Class ships, maybe?"

"Eh…" Sulu gave Kirk a desperate glance.

"Are you insane? Fiddling with that stuff in a spacedock? With hundreds of things moving at different vectors!"

Kirk patted McCoy on the shoulder, "Now, now, to paraphrase something someone said earlier tonight: sometimes, Bones, you don't need to know more than your very competent captain tells you, in order to not… get pulled off-focus by minor parking matters."

McCoy sputtered and grumbled but eventually settled down. "Well, if you had some other more high-ranking idiot in on your plan, I guess I can't blame it all on you. I'm never letting you fly me anywhere, again, though. And I mean both of you!"

Uhura said innocently, "But, Leonard, didn't you insist on Sulu being the pilot for that data-gathering trip you are taking next week up to the sun's corona?"

"Well… After that I'm not letting him drive me anywhere!"

"My loss, of course, Doctor," said Sulu. "And it was a stupid move - mainly because it was done for all the wrong reasons. Now, fortunately, my tampering only led the systems to think I was a legit modern shuttle, it didn't actually make the transponder lie about my size or speed, so I wasn't at risk to crash into anything.."

"I intended to take the thing up, a classic vertical takeoff, and then fly for a minute over to the Cataract Falls, take a picture, and then scurry back, and spend the rest of the evening resetting the transponder. The others helped by scanning the skies for any incoming brass that would be able to pick the thing out on sight, but luckily we were all alone out there, and far enough out from any major sky lanes." No one questioned why Sulu had been the one chosen to fly the old airplane by the other cadets.

"I got in, did the pre-flight check three times, and then a thirty-meter test takeoff and landing, just to make sure I could actually control the thing. There was a modern interface, and the graviton add-on meant that I didn't actually need to fire up rocket fuel all over the ground. Even though this meant that it wouldn't be 100% of the original, historical experience, it also meant that I didn't have to incinerate the local plant life, and my pals, so I was quite okay with that. Still, once up in the air, it was all traditional air-pressure imbalance that kept me going, no graviton fields at all! For the first couple of minutes, the thing was shaking so much that I thought my teeth were going to fall out. Then it turned out to be relatively easy to fly it - no, scratch that, it was _fantastic_ to fly it. It's like the difference between riding an anti-grav sleigh and a real horse. I could feel the plane being _alive_ under me. I shouldn't have done it, and I deserved everything that happened afterwards, but I will never forget that feeling…"

"I can only attribute the rotten timing of what happened next to the bad karma that I was carrying around just then. I'd just gotten over to Cataract Falls when my com board lit up, and I was being hailed. I thought the game was up, but then I realized that it wasn't our lieutenant, or some other angry officer; it was the continental National Park's office! They said that they saw I was flying a Starfleet shuttle outside the space lane, and said that they wanted to ask me a favor, if I had the time..."

"I should have said no. I should have made up an excuse, or just pretended I couldn't hear them, or maybe that I couldn't speak Standard, or really _anything_ , but I instead found myself squeaking out a 'yes ma'am, anything you need ma'am', and just like that, me and my 'shuttle' had been pressed into service."

"The National Park person was apologetic about bothering me, but said that they wanted an eye in the sky on a forest fire over in the Muir Woods. They had the fire under control, but didn't want to extinguish it - forest fires are good for woodlands; it's a natural part of their life cycle. But something had pinged the sensors about movement that got a little too close to the safety perimeter, and protocol demanded a physical check. Rather than send out someone from their own office for what was probably nothing, why not ask the friendly Starfleet shuttle that seemed to be in just the right area to angle over and have a quick peek…"

"So I did. It wasn't a major fire, but it was very noticeable as I got closer, dark smoke billowing up in the sky. Part of the Redwood forest was burning. Trees that had stood there since the days of the Miwok and the Pomo tribes were dying, becoming the soil that would nurture the next generation... My scanners weren't that great, but then again I'd been told exactly where to look, and I skirted the forest fire coming around to the west. I could confirm that nothing looked out of place, and that might have been it, except that I suddenly saw a couple of hikers, about two kilometers from the safety perimeters, and they seemed to be heading inwards. I told the National Park lady, and she said that they were out of the danger zone, there had been alerts, and they could most likely see the smoke, so she wasn't worried...But then she had to go and add 'but, of course, it's up to you if you want to warn them, just to be safe.'"

"Yeah… 'it's up to you if you want to warn them'... Gods, suddenly I realized exactly what kind of trouble I could get in. And I don't mean taking a plane up without permission, I mean that I really really really didn't want to go down there with the Cerberus. My mind was telling me that it wasn't necessary, that I should just take the plane back. But... how much of that certainty was influenced by wanting to cover up what we'd done? I didn't know. The hikers weren't even in the outer danger zone. But… Maybe they hadn't heard the alerts. Maybe they were aliens that didn't even have visual optics. Maybe they were drunk. And now that I had _thought_ about going down and debated the matter with myself, I knew that if something were to happen to them on the ground, and my lieutenant asked if there was a chance that I was emotionally compromised over the matter, I wouldn't be able to give them a straight 'of course not'."

"So, in the end, I took the plane down in a clearing just ahead of the people. It turned out to be two hiking Andorians, and of course they knew about the alerts, and had updating real time maps of where the danger zone was. And of course they were suddenly far more interested in this ancient-looking airplane than the shrubbery, and of course they wanted to take pictures of it. A lot of pictures. I think I made up some sort of my-religion-believes-that-pictures-can-steal-your-soul thing, but, as it turned out, that didn't really matter in the end. I left my two new, excited pals, and took off again, hiding in the clouds all the way back to Kenton. The National Park's person hadn't caught on, and thanked me for taking a few minutes to lend a hand and cheerily signed off…"

"No one saw me. The landing wasn't a problem, but when I got out, I saw that our new paint job had gotten a very realistic, historical-looking patina from the wood smoke - some sort of reaction with the nano-colors. And it became clear that they hadn't bother to fabricate original engine filters, so the exhaust chambers were all dirty brown… Still, we could probably have managed to clean it up and restore everything if we'd worked our asses off, but just then Ambjornsson, one of the other cadets, came out all white-faced, waving a portable holo viewer. And there, on the evening news, were pictures of our Cerberus and two grinning Andorians… And then the reporter called up Rear Admiral Sint and asked him about the curiosity of Starfleet flying ancient airplanes in modern service, and he made up something on the spot about the importance of integrating our knowledge of history in the modern day 'Fleet, and acknowledging our roots…"

"Our lieutenant beamed in about two minutes after that. She wasn't… pleased. She wasn't the type who shouted, she just looked at us, as we were standing at attention, scrutinizing us one by one for several minutes. I really thought Ambjornsson was going to cry. I still had my flight helmet on, and I wasn't even going to try to hide it. Eventually she dismissed everyone else with a gesture, and they nearly fell over themselves trying to get to the plane to clean it up. I didn't really have a good excuse, and all I could do was follow along as she brought me back to Rear Admiral Sint, and, well, _he_ had no problem shouting…"

"Suffice it to say that I didn't get to see the parade. As you know, Starfleet doesn't really like suspensions, believing that less work isn't going to straighten anything out. I think Sint would have wanted to make an exception, just for me, but our lieutenant made a calm case that I was salvageable, and that, in the end, taking the plane up at all had been the infraction, the rest of the things just snowballed. Since they wanted me as a pilot, they couldn't ground me, but they threw on extra duty shifts - idle hands and all that. I think the idea was to keep me too exhausted to have time for any more shenanigans until I was graduated. They sent me over to the xenobotany specialists, where I spent most of my time spreading chemical manure over plants…"

"Bah." said Chekov. "Even from that you came up smelling of roses. You know, he'd never touched a flower in his life before that? And when he got out, he'd won an orchid competition! Disgusting, is what it is!" But he was grinning proudly at the Japanese man beside him.

"Good choices, lad." Said Scotty, raising his glass at Sulu. "Well… good choices when it really mattered, at least." He turned a warning finger to the others. "I hope you all realize that the real moral of this story is that someone went to all the trouble of recreating something so beautiful as the Cerberus, and then not installing proper filters! Suspension? Hah! Those engineers, and I'm using that term very loosely now, they should be keel-hauled!"

"Space vessels have no keels, Mr. Scott," interjected Spock.

"Oh, I will make one. Just for them."

"Look at the time - we only have about an hour before your shuttle leaves, Pavel," Uhura observed.

"Oh no, we're not wrapping this up just yet," McCoy interjected forcefully, "It's your turn, Spock!" He gave the Vulcan a challenging grin, which only earned him a raised eyebrow.

Kirk smiled, but quickly interjected, "you don't have to, Spock."

"I am not sure that is true, Jim," Spock said, surveying the others. "I believe not participating would be a clear break in the social rules that have emerged tonight."

"Yes, very bad form. Wouldn't do. Now spill," ordered McCoy and settled back in the sofa. "You seem to have a talent for getting the screw-ups in your record censored by higher powers, or somehow not entered at all," he gave Jim a look, "But I'm sure there's something unclassified that that eidetic memory of yours can drag up. And we've already filled our quota of stories about breaking regs in order to do something self-sacrificing and noble" he jabbed his thumb in Chekov's direction, "So you're not allowed to tell us something like that."

Spock ignored him, turning to the admiral. "If I understand the criteria for this storytelling session correctly, the tales should be based in a personal mistake which lead to problems of some magnitude, but which nonetheless, possibly due to starfleet training and ethics, ended in a far more benign manner than might have been expected."

McCoy groaned at what he thought was too dry an explanation, but Jim smiled and nodded. Spock had analyzed the unspoken agreement that had arisen in the group, and by putting words on it, had focused everyone's thoughts. Jim had found many of the tales funny, and he was not above teasing the others about their mistakes, especially when they'd volunteered the stories themselves. But what would stay with him was the manner in which his friends had managed, through ingenuity and perseverance, to get up off the mat.

"Then, I believe I have such a story to contribute. As for why events unfolded as they did, I can, regretfully, only say that each and every step seemed quite logical at the time..."

* * *

Author's note: One more chapter to go - a tale of Spock's early year's with Pike on the Enterprise. What did you think of Sulu's story?

I'm, as usual, indebted to DelJewell and WeirdLittleStories for grammar, spelling and lots of story help!


	8. Chapter 8: Spock's Story & Epilogue

**Chapter 8: Spock's story (and epilogue)**

As Spock prepared to tell his story, the humans around him relaxed into their chairs and sofas. Spock kept his mental shields low, allowing, for a moment, the low telepathic buzz of their affection and respect to brush against his mind.

He knew that the Kolinahr masters would have considered such indulgence a scandalous practice – a dangerous slippery slope that lead to emotional chains between beings, dragging them away from rational thought and the solemn responsibilities that all able-minded creatures had towards the universe around them. Part of the revelation that V'Ger had given him had been that allowing for a reasonable amount of these connections was, in itself, an important part of that responsibility.

Chains also kept ships safe in storms.

"The events in question took place on stardate 3298.4, early in my assignment to the Enterprise. Captain April was in command, and Commander Pike was his first officer. The _Enterprise_ had been ordered to Memory Prime to transfer the newly awakened federation citizen Martian Cloud to the Memory Prime habitat. I believe Mr. Scott might recall the mission?"

Scotty frowned, and scratched his neck. He'd been an ensign at the time, quite reasonably obsessed with the Engine Room and paying very little attention to anything outside it. But then he smiled.

"Oh, aye, Mr. Spock! Martian Cloud, it was that artificial intelligence on New Mars that became sentient. Threw the whole planet into a panic before things got sorted out. Spontaneous, natural AI awakenings being as rare as they are, I remember there was quite a stir when it came aboard. Not that it was much to look at, mind, just half the cargo bay filled with data carriers. You were its minder, weren't you Mr. Spock?"

"I was its liaison, Mr. Scott. At the start of our journey it was still very young and distributed in its thinking, but as we came closer to Memory Prime, I was able to have a number of fascinating discussions with the gentlebeing."

"When we reached Memory Prime, Martian Cloud was transferred to the AI habitat there. I oversaw the transfer, and volunteered to stay and monitor the integration while the _Enterprise_ left for the nearby Canis system for some diplomatic representation."

"You mean Pike let you loose on your own in AI town?" Drawled McCoy, "I'm surprised we ever got you back."

"They do have a much to recommend them, Doctor, such as well-ordered thought patterns and a purpose to their communications," Spock responded, a pointed emphasis on _purpose_.

"Why did you have to oversee the integration, Mr. Spock," asked Chekov. "I can't imagine that there is much even you could contribute that the AIs themselves couldn't do. I'd think it would be rather...boring after the first hour or so."

"My presence was indeed more for my benefit and education than for any assistance that I could render the community. It was quite instructional, for the first fifty-four hours. The patterns in the integration data held much beauty. At first it was discernible by the eye in the raw data, then by extrapolating visualization algorithms, then by more abstract scripts that I wrote as the integration proceeded. Finally, however, the level and method of the conversation did indeed become too hard to follow."

"At that point I will admit to a certain... restlessness. I had been given a small isolated research cubicle off the main visitors' corridor. The habitat had several organic guests, but the others were all in the main research chambers, busy with code word restricted research. There is little on Memory Prime of interest outside the information world, so, naturally I began to... look around."

"You got bored and started poking at things." Translated McCoy. "Good Lord, Jim, can you think of anything more dangerous?" The Humans laughed and Spock loftily ignored the Doctor.

"There are any number of user interfaces created by the AI community for the use of their organic guests. They will happily create different access points for each race and culture that visit them. I understand that it is a revered art form. Mostly it is only the outer shell that is different, overlayed on the same computational hardware. For some races, such as the Aarth, the Horta or the Tev, the hardware will also change."

"The first generation of these interfaces are created in tandem with computer experts from the organic users' worlds, and during that early design there are sometimes... errors."

"I found the interface design interesting, and started researching the crystalline Aarth interface. The fluctuations of crystals is, as you know, important in many basic computer designs... I can see from your expression, Doctor, that I should refrain from getting too technical, and I do not believe it is necessary for the dramatic arc of the narrative. Suffice is to say that during my research, I found a way to retrieve earlier access rights and reapply them to the present system."

McCoy looked bored, but several of the others sat up quickly.

"Spock, are you telling me that you hacked into the most secure information system in the Federation?" Kirk asked.

Spock looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Jim, 'hacking' implies malicious intent. Once I started looking, the entry was so obvious that it could hardly be termed a forced entry."

"Let me rephrase. Are you telling me that you found, after several hours of exploring this restricted site, an unlocked door with large keep-out signs, and knowingly decided to step inside?"

"That is... essentially correct."

Kirk gave him a long look, tinged with exasperated affection. "I am so glad you weren't my problem back then. Go on, I suspect this gets worse."

"I wish to state that the reason for my continued exploration was to formulate a report on the security hole that I had discovered. It appeared to me, at the time, that I needed to acquire more data in order to give a full account of the ramifications of the breach. This is, of course, counter to regulations and the instructions I give to my students at present. For very good reasons."

"As I stepped into the AI world, I was quickly overwhelmed by the complexity of the data. I used an enhanced three dimensional user interface, but the graphics routines struggled to make sense of the multidimensionality. I set up system after system to be able to orient myself - I was unclear even of which part of the infrastructure that I had gained access to. I was lost, and my presence was starting to generate data trails of its own, disturbing the habitat."

Spock tilted his head. "It was at that point that I made my second error. I decided I could now not leave until I had attempted to clean up the disruption I was causing. Unfortunately and inevitably, this aggravated the contamination problem. I recall a discussion you and I had, Mr. Chekov, some twelve point four years later, on a similar, but far less serious, matter."

"It would be hard for me to forget that... discussion, Mr. Spock." Chekov's eyes had grown large, and he had to admit that he was enjoying this story a little too much. "The matter certainly felt quite serious at the time, but I am happy to get a bit of... perspective... I believe a lot of things were said about sunk cost fallacies, compounding errors, and exponentially increasing error rates."

"Indeed. When it comes to disharmonic dynamic emergent information systems, Virgil's caution springs to mind: the cure can be worse than the disease. In most cases, it is best to remove all outside involvement, and let the system achieve balance on its own."

"Believing I could fix the problem on my own, I decided, instead, to remain."

"In order to interact with the systems, I needed to establish a structure that would respond to logical commands. The information around me, the very environment in which it was couched, was changing to rapidly for me to do that manually, and I decided to apply some advanced machine learning algorithms. Given enough data, and enough raw power, they should, in theory, be able to induce balance into the system."

"The only sources for the computing power was, however, the AI habitat itself. The learning algorithms were soon out of my control, seeking to understand the local complexity. They started to seek patterns in the organized chaos." Spock paused, trying to come up with an analogy that would convey the nature of his mistake to the others, and was gratified when both Uhura and Chekov seemed to catch on.

"They... created a localized feedback loop inside the AI community. _Bozhe moi_ … "

"Yes. And they gave that feedback loop the single objective to achieve structure, and all the computer power it needed."

Uhura's eyes had grown large. "Oh, dear…"

"Enough with the technobabble!" Commanded McCoy, "What does it mean? What did you do?"

"I inadvertently engendered a phase three awakening."

"He made a little AI baby, Bones," Kirk translated.

The doctor looked stunned for a moment, but then a grin spread across his face. "Well, Spock, I didn't know you had it in you. Congratulations."

"It was not a baby, and certainly not mine in any sense of that word, Doctor. It was a new consciousness, however, formed by bits and pieces of the other consciousnesses in the habitat. It was inexperienced, but quite capable of making its own decisions."

"What did you name it?" Asked Sulu.

"In order to interact with its environment, it chose several names for itself to be used in different circumstances. Most of them were series of numerals, but it chose the name ShiKahr in its dealings with me."

"Yeah, ShiKahr after the city of _your_ birth, Spock." McCoy needled. "Don't tell me that you had no influence on this bouncing baby machine."

"Doctor, your skills of ill-considered anthropomorphizing, using terran customs and view-points..."

"Don't try to tell me that you were blameless in this..."

"I am not. I am, in fact, telling you the opposite."

Jim narrowed his eyes at Bones, a subtle but clear signal to back off. Bones shut up, and leaned back, a smile still playing on his lips. He knew that admiral's over-protectiveness was more a signal of Kirk's own general state of mind, than of any need on their Vulcan friend's part to be shielded from McCoy. Spock was doing just fine – in fact: speaking openly about mistakes made, fluently interpreting human body language and social conventions the way he did... McCoy thought he was doing great. His friend was different since V'Ger, but it was a positive difference – he was balanced, relaxed, more secure in himself, his worth and his abilities than Bones had seen him in... well, ever.

Spock continued, unperturbed:

"Fortunately, at this point several AIs became aware of my presence, and began to notice their newest citizen. ShiKahr was growing exponentially, appropriating more and more memory space and processing power, attacking any other AIs that came close. The others withdrew when their overtures to the new consciousness were met with aggression and hostility."

"The situation was increasingly problematic. If the new consciousness could not be reasoned with, it would have to be forcefully contained before it could threaten the habitat further: its data subsumed in the others, its newly awakened personality dissolved."

"They would kill it?" Asked Scotty, looking outraged.

"Their view of life and death is very different from the human perspective, Mr. Scott. But yes, the analogy is appropriate – I certainly believed so, and I petitioned the habitat to let me try to communicate with ShiKahr."

"The other organics on the research station – and these included vice admiral Abdullahi from Starfleet Intelligence – argued quite strongly, at this point, to have me removed from the interface, but Martian Cloud spoke on my behalf to the community, and pointed out that since I was the only being that ShiKahr still granted any communication access rights to, I had the greatest chance to solve the situation in an orderly manner.

"The other AIs turned their attention to me. They effortlessly structured my user interface into a more coherent form, and then started bombarding me with questions. It appeared that they found my code, and therefore me…"

"Fascinating?" Supplied Kirk with a smile.

"Like-minded?" Asked McCoy with a smirk.

"...Engaging. They agreed to let me proceed, expressing more curiosity than condemnation – quite unlike Vice-Admiral Abdullahi, who made it eminently clear that she expected a long talk with me once I had, I quote, 'fixed this thing'."

"I was grateful for the opportunity to make amends – since arriving, I had brought little but disorder with me, and it was difficult for me to repress feelings of shame. It was certainly not how I would have wished to present myself the the AI community, nor to my Starfleet superiors in residence at Memory Prime. I could only endeavour to salvage as much as possible from the situation."

"I had noticed that ShiKahr's acquisition of resources did not seem to follow any pre-determined plan. I therefore concluded that it was not acting to achieve power, it was _re_ acting to preserve itself. It saw any attempt to curtail it as a potential threat."

"Once the other AIs stopped their attempts to interact, ShiKahr ceased expanding, becoming calmer, but clearly ready to to react at a moment's notice. Like any new consciousness it had difficulty understanding not only what itself was, but what the world around it was. What parts of the information structure were inert data, and what were other consciousnesses? Did the solid universe outside the AI habitat, relayed through many different sensors, truly exist? What was time? Distance? Space?"

"The fact that it had not shut me out completely was promising. I carefully started requesting information and running small programs within ShiKahr's network structure. At first I wrote very simple programs, constructing and deconstructing mathematical proofs, again and again. Shikahr allowed this, but I was given very little space to work in. ShiKahr pulled every log file, scrutinizing them. I kept doing this for quite some time, analyzing a few small local data files in thousands of different ways. It was repetitive, and I grew more and more concerned that it would not lead to any further interaction with the AI."

"Then, after forty-two point three minutes, ShiKahr started offering new data for my analyses. Together, we made correlation tests and polydimensional scaling analyses of weather data appropriated from Martian Cloud, then of population dynamics from Andor Three. I was slowly granted more access rights, and started to see deeper into the information structure of the being. The core of the new AI had formed around my data trail, which meant that a lot of its central core was built around Starfleet databases. We explored warp drive statistics, defensive and offensive capabilities of starships and protective patrol paths through the sector surrounding Memory Prime – and then, quite on its own, ShiKahr started studying the Federation Charter and First Contact Protocols. At first, I saw this as a very promising development – with the exception of the writings of Surak, I can think of no better basis for a new consciousness. But then my access rights were suddenly shut down, my programs stopped, and the infrastructure that I had used to visualize and manipulate the information world was curtailed. The virtual environment became nothing more than a grey haze around me."

"I was just about to withdraw, ready to admit my failure to the habitat and the vice-admiral, when Vulcan writing appeared in front of me."

"' _Are you real?_ ' it said."

"Opening a basic text command prompt, I answered simply: ' _Yes_.'"

"After a pause of fourteen seconds, new writing appeared. ' _Are you sentient?_ '"

"Again, I answered with an affirmative."

"An even longer pause followed, and then the restrictions started falling away, and I again had access to the data. New writing appeared, combined with an audio channel simultaneously speaking in Vulcan and Standard: ' _Accepting that would seem to be the most interesting option. I am ShiKahr. I am new. Who are you? What can you do? What is this place? What is rain? Why do population statistics on Andor ever decrease? Why do they increase? What is a starship, and how can I have one?_ '"

The Humans started laughing, and Scotty said,

"Sounds like the wee baby became a six year old in a hurry!"

Spock heroically refrained from pointing out the illogic of that statement, and nodded instead, "In a matter of speaking, yes. A great wealth of questions followed, but fortunately, eighteen point seven hours later, ShiKahr was content enough consent to let me go for a while. By then it had accepted that the other AIs were sentient beings and turned most of its curiosity on them."

"As I logged out of the system, the vice-admiral expressed her... displeasure at my unsanctioned entrance into the habitat, and attempted to, for the lack of a brig, put me in house arrest in my quarters on the station..."

"Attempted to?" Asked Kirk.

"Yes. Once it became clear to ShiKahr that I was not allowed to communicate with it, and was in fact locked into a restricted space, it protested rather strongly. For a being made of, and living in, information, forced isolation is quite a horrendous punishment. Martian Cloud also spoke on my behalf, making the argument that most of the fault lay with the AI habitat itself: the habitat regretted the oversight of the security hole that had led to my entrance, and accepted responsibility for the series of events that followed. Vice-admiral Abdullahi expressed her opinion that the fault lay with her, to quote, undisciplined junior officer. Martian Cloud admitted that it did not fully understand humanoid thought processes, but surely it was not unexpected that such a young humanoid as myself, especially given the personnel file it had perused, would have difficulty resisting the temptation of curiosity, and that providing a safe working environment was the responsibility of more experienced beings."

"So, in essence, a four-month old AI said that you were an nosy brat, too young to be held accountable for your actions?" McCoy asked.

Spock raised a sardonic eyebrow, "It was not an evaluation that I appreciated – however, I was not in a position to argue the point at that time."

"In order not to create a diplomatic situation with the habitat, the vice-admiral decided to not pursue any disciplinary action against me, electing to hand the problem off, as it were, on my superior officers on the _Enterprise_ when the ship returned the next morning. I spent the time until then speaking writing reports on the incidents, and speaking with ShiKahr."

"Was the baby AI ok with you going away?" Asked Chekov.

"ShiKahr is mostly interested in communication time, not physical distances. It was concerned at the communication lags to other parts of space – not only to me, but to the many other sources of interesting data in the universe. As a result it has since its birth devoted much time to communications algorithms." He turned his gaze to Uhura who smiled in return.

"Of course!" She said. " I know ShiKahr! But I always thought that the _ShiKahr_ that created the subspace comm tunnels was a Vulcan think tank – I never knew it was a single being. I'm going to have to look it up. Care to introduce me?"

Spock inclined his head.

"What happened when the _Enterprise_ got back?" Asked Kirk.

"I was debriefed quite thoroughly by the Science Officer and Commander Pike – a debrief not helped by ShiKahr being quite concerned with them isolating me again, constantly peeking and prodding at the _Enterprise's_ firewalls. I had attempted to direct it's ethical learning towards the Vulcan masters, but even so it turned out to be capable of quite some... guile.

"Sneaky Vulcan makes sneaky AI baby," concluded McCoy.

"Captain April left the entire affair up to Commander Pike, and he and I talked at length about power and responsibility and the difference between self assurance and arrogance. He also assured ShiKahr that he was not going to lock me away somewhere – quite the opposite in fact. I was going to get all the access to data and information I could possibly handle – he was not going to run the risk of having me, to quote, get bored again. He put me on a regular double shift rotation, in addition to a standing order to monitor and entertain ShiKahr over subspace channels, until that being was mature enough to set out on its own."

"Now wait just a minute!" McCoy interrupted. "Do you mean that after you had hacked into Memory Prime, created a new AI with no official sanction, which then proceeded to run amok all around the place, Pike gave you a slap on the wrist and a baby AI to play with?"

"Now, Bones, I think it sounds quite reasonable." Jim said, and McCoy gave him an exasperated glare.

"Of _course_ you do, Jim." He shook his head at Spock, "I swear I'll never understand how you get out of these kinds of things. I've gotten in more trouble misplacing bed pans!"

Spock leaned back, steepled his fingers, and elected to consider this seriously, rather than continue the barbed banter. "Punishments and demerits have no value in themselves, Doctor. They are means to an end. For me, Commander Pike's words of disappointment and chastisement made a greater impression and led to more reflection and change in my behavior than any demotion could have done. The same disciplinary method might not work for another officer. I have always been grateful for the understanding and leniency that my superior officers have shown me. That flexibility was not something that I was accustomed to from my upbringing on Vulcan. In turn, I have tried to learn to apply such flexibility in my own mentoring, as needed."

"You advocating for a flexible interpretation of regulations, Spock?" Kirk said, teasing gently, drawing his eyes in and holding them.

Spock raised the expected eyebrow. "As needed, Jim."

The others smiled, leaving the two friends to their unspoken communication.

===\\\\_/===

 **EPILOGUE**

The others smiled, leaving the two friends to their unspoken communication.

Uhura started telling Sulu about what she knew of ShiKahr, and small islands of conversations arose among the sofas and chairs. The atmosphere was relaxed and safe, languid and content.

Chekov finally got up off the sofa with a groan. "I think no flexibility of regulations will save me from the wrath Chief Dak unless I take a shower before I show up on the Reliant with all those pesky human sweat glands." He stretched. "Admiral... Jim... May I..."

"Take the shower in the guest room. Towels beneath the sink. There's a replicator in there too. "

Chekov made his way to the guest room, and Sulu glanced at the time and started gathering the small army of tasting glasses that had assembled on the low sofa table. Scotty fought to keep his, insisting that there were still some drops left of the various spirits, and that the aromas were the main point anyways.

"So what have we learned about cadets?" drawled McCoy. "They're likely to miss the most important deadlines" he pointed accusingly at Kirk, who shrugged. "They'll get into deep water before they can swim" he pointed to himself.

"They'll forget stuff, no matter how many times you tell them about it." Said Uhura

"They'll break what they think are harmless regulations and then make things worse by covering it up." Scotty attempted to say, with a rather creative use of pronunciation. Words magically tended to get longer and more convoluted the more he drank, he'd discovered. Sulu nodded though, so he assumed he'd managed to wrestle these particular word beasties to the ground.

"I don't even know what to say about you." McCoy said, with a playful scowl at Spock. "They'll get bored, and there's nothing quite so dangerous as a bored curious mind."

"There's nothing quite as powerful as a curious mind." Kirk amended. "And that's what we've got in our cadets. The ones who went into Starfleet for the glory or the status have hopefully already washed out. They'll make mistakes. They'll do stupid things for various reasons – and I'm going to bet that pride, sex and boredom are some of the key motivators." He shared a smile with the others. "But it's only through falling that we learn how to climb – and that their new Starfleet family will be there to catch them and set them safely down again."

"I'd toas' t'family but Sulu stole all the glassss.. thingies." Scotty grumbled good naturedly, just as Chekov emerged from the guest room and leaned against his chair. The admiral nodded.

"Yes. Family."

They looked at each other for a long moment. It felt as if time stood still, as they balanced on the knife edge between one day and the next, between night and morning, between past and future. Then the antique clock softly chimed, and time lurched to a start again.

Uhura helped Scotty get up.

"I brought my sky hopper," Sulu said, "I'll drive you over to the HQ shuttle bay, Pavel, before I drop the doctor off."

"Me and Scotty will come along," Said Uhura, with an evaluating glance at the Scotsman, who had valiantly kept from taking any detox tablets, but was now showing definite signs of intoxicated sleepiness.

"I don't need an escort for a ten minute walk" Chekov protested. "And whatever you may think, Hikaru, I actually _am_ able to find Fleet HQ on my own."

"We were all so happy, for your sake, when they put up that twenty meter high sign, yes." Sulu said playfully, enjoying the answering gleam in Chekov's eyes. But then he took a breath and became serious.

"Look, Lieutenant Commander… I know I speak for all of us when I say that we're proud of you, and that we know that you'll do great things out there on the _Reliant_. I think you needed this gathering least of all of us. Let me pretend to be useful by dropping you off and keeping you company for the last few minutes, at least."

Chekov colored, "I… please. I would like that."

People exchanged good-byes. Chekov traded a look with Spock that made him stand a little straighter, and then Kirk shook his hand, drawing him close for a moment for a piece of whispered last minute advice that made the younger man laugh out loud. The group finally departed with little further ceremony, leaving Spock and Kirk in the apartment.

They gravitated towards the windows overlooking the city far below. Kirk let out a sigh.

"You are concerned."

"No. I'm… jealous. Not a pretty sentiment. Mixed in with happiness. All very human and messy."

Spock shifted his gaze from the cityscape to Kirk.

"'It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…'" he quoted.

Kirk narrowed his eyes, searching his memory.

"Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. It must have been two decades since I read that one. Far too fitting."

He let out an explosive sigh.

"I'm feeling a little paternalistic worry, and pride, and a great deal of happiness for Chekov's sake, but... I can't deny that there's this little seed of jealousy. Narcissistic and ungrateful."

He dismissed the dark concern in his friends eyes with a gesture.

"It's... Sometimes I just I wish I had a ship. Freedom incarnate. Not necessarily a spaceship. Maybe a yacht."

"Or the Cerberus A3 plane that Sulu was speaking of?"

"Ha. Yes. God, yes." His voice was low.

"Why do you not have one?"

Kirk blinked, thrown out of his pensive mood. "Have... Why I don't have a Cerberus?"

"Yes."

"I... Well... How would I get one?"

"We could make one. I checked earlier tonight, and all the blueprints except the weapons systems are in the public domain replicator data banks. Together you, I and Mr. Scott have the certificates and capabilities to put a small inter-atmosphere craft together." Spock considered, and then amended: "In a non-intoxicated state, that is."

"That'd take... months! And what would I do with it?"

Spock merely looked at him. Kirk shook his head, partly amused, partly, frustrated and partly... desperate.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because... Going about building old planes is what..." He took a deep breath. "It's what old humans do, Spock. Obsessing over planes or motorcycles or gardens. They might enjoy it, but when people look at them, they... smile. Like you do at old, silly persons."

Spock half turned, interposing himself between the brooding human and the dark expanse beyond the window. His eyes were dark like the night sky, deep and accepting.

"Who are these people, Jim?" The Vulcan asked gently. "And why do their opinions matter?"

Jim stood still for a few seconds, and then he let out his breath with a slow measured sigh, feeling his shoulders drop.

"...They shouldn't." He put his hands on Spock's arms, squeezing lightly. He chuckled. "They don't. God, I must be driving you crazy with these temperamental mood swings. It'll get better, Spock. Bones and everyone else tells me that this is part and parcel of a typical human mid-life crisis. I just thought myself above such things, I guess. I miss… so many things. Being out there." He gestured at the stars. "Making a tangible difference that was immediately obvious. But it'll get better. Give me half a year."

Spock considered him and then nodded once, decisively.

"Very well. You have six months."

"And then what?" Kirk asked, amused despite himself.

"I have not yet decided." It was half a threat, half a promise, and in all it's vagueness it still have Kirk a warm feeling of direction and purpose.

"You are not to steal any ships!" Kirk admonished, half serious. Spock gave him an uninterpretable glance that promised nothing and as one they turned back into the apartment.

"This place is a mess. But I need to get a few hours sleep before the official _Reliant_ send-off tomorrow afternoon. You're welcome to stay, as always. I have a feeling you're going to be up and working for a few hours?"

"Indeed. I have to revisit my knowledge of 20th century plane construction. And the _Enterprise_ leaves on its training cruise in forty-three days, at which point our complement of cadets need to be able to crew her."

"Regardless of the complaining, I can see how proud you all are of them, Spock. They won't fail you. And if or when they do..." They thought about the night's stories.

"We will catch them," Spock finished. "As you said, Jim. It's what we do in this... family."

===\\\\_/===

 **Author's note: And that's the end! What did you think of Spock's story? And of the fic as a whole? Did the frame story of Kirk's anxiety and Chekov's nervousness work, and the theme of mistakes and correcting them? Which individual story did you like the most?**

 **(And please let me know if you found any spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes!)**


End file.
